http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/loca ... 5261.story
Violence threatens progress in Uptown
Tensions rising between neighbors, community groups
By James Janega | Chicago Tribune reporter
August 21, 2008
Updating Uptown was no easy feat. It took a generation of house-to-house rehabs, a fight to save affordable housing, and exacting police work that for years steadily knocked down crime in the diverse North Side neighborhood.
Then came daylight shootings this summer that unsettled Uptown and widened gaps within the community. Frustrated residents worry they have taken two steps forward and one step back in efforts to improve the quality of life while trying to hold onto its quilt of ethnicities, classes and interest groups.
Battles for gang leadership in the lakefront neighborhood have upset that delicate balance, officials said, fueling an already uneasy political standoff that mainly pits poor renters against professionals and homeowners. At stake, many fear, is the future of Chicago's most diverse neighborhood.
"How do you build a community of people who come from different places and react to the same experiences differently?" Ald. Helen Shiller (46th) said. "The danger we face is not building one community."
But residents said the recent violence has strained the neighborhood. "I feel like I'm in a volcano, and the volcano is about to erupt," Uptown activist Katharine Boyda said.
Gunfire on July 22 wounded a 16-year-old boy who police said was a West Side gang member who recently had moved to Uptown. The shooting at Leland Avenue and Dover Street was down the street from a park where parents take children to little league practices.
And it came on the heels of a July 15 shootout at Malden Street and Wilson Avenue involving four members of the same Uptown gang—an incident that began several blocks away and ended in front of a two-bedroom, two-bath condo for sale with a fireplace, whirlpool bath, in-unit laundry and gated parking space. A woman pushing a stroller nearby had to throw herself on top of her infant and shout for the assailants to stop, witnesses and a family member said.
There have been nine shootings in the neighborhood this year, slightly more than in recent years, police said, including gang crossfire on May 21 that killed Francis Oduro, 22, an exchange student from Ghana. The fatal shootout happened on Broadway in front of a busy shoe store.
"Everything's in the open," said John Smith, 57, a popular security guard at the McDonald's on the corner of Wilson Avenue and Sheridan Road, one of Uptown's busiest intersections. He lives across the street, and listens to police radios when he is off duty. "You listen to that scanner, you think, 'Damn, does it ever stop?' "
Though police statistics for Uptown show precipitous drops over the last eight years in murders, aggravated assaults, burglaries, rapes and robberies, statistics also show most of those crimes have seen slight increases in Uptown over the first seven months of 2008.
The uptick coincides with a broader trend in city crime that saw a 2 percent increase in violence in the first seven months of 2008 when compared to the same period last year, and an 18 percent jump in homicides and a 6 percent increase in robberies.
Uptown packs Chicago's densest concentration of social services amid 63,000 people in a footprint of barely 1.5 square miles. Whites, blacks and Latinos live alongside sizable enclaves of Southeast Asians and American Indians. Depending on the study, between a third and half of residents are low-income. At Senn High School, students speak 65 languages.
The neighborhood has Thai restaurants, an African grocery and a strip of Vietnamese businesses on Argyle Street. The Organization of the NorthEast, has 87 member organizations providing social services, most in Uptown.
Police say the neighborhood's main gangs—franchises of the Gangster Disciples, Conservative Vice Lords and Black P Stones—have worked out elaborate schemes of cooperation. They share street corners, live in the same buildings and often are arrested in the same cars, Town Hall District Tactical Lt. Robert Stasch said.
Over the last two years, police operations have targeted leadership of those gangs, especially the Black P Stones, and the drug trade that sustains them, Town Hall District Cmdr. Kathleen Boehmer said. The most recent operation ended in mid-July.
The remaining power vacuum within the gangs, Stasch said, sparked fights this summer for street credibility among younger members. Many of the arguments played out in residential blocks and on busy corners.
More than 400 people attended a sometimes contentious meeting July 30 at Truman College. Several people later said they thought the meeting yielded productive ideas, but it also stirred simmering animosities between neighborhood groups.
"They're not trying to help the people who are poor or need help," Johnny King, a job counselor in one of Uptown's many homeless shelters, said of homeowners who had complained. Another voice at the meeting was Jon Trott, a member of the religious social service group the Jesus People. His adult daughter was the one who dove on top of her infant during the July 15 shootout. Several people aspired to strike out against a vague sense of hopelessness they believe causes the violence.
"You won't find anyone who's neutral on this in Uptown," Trott said.
This month, elected officials brainstormed with local police on ways to prevent violence, from boosting public cooperation with police to funneling volunteers into programs for at-risk youths.
A major goal, said elected officials and community group leaders, is finding a way to keep a lid on frustrations between homeowners and lower-income neighbors. "It's such a unique opportunity we have in Uptown," said Jamiko Rose, executive director of the Organization of the NorthEast. "The question is, do we embrace the dream and work on addressing issues together? Or do we dismiss it?"
jjanega@tribune.com 
IS THAT RIGHT??!!! so other poor areas of the country are apparently lagging behind on their share of high crime! 