Gangs in Chicago
juiceman
Greetings!
The Site of Big Shoulders is pleased to announce the publication of
"Chicagoland Gangs," found text from the Chicago Crime Commission. Dive
in to this feature to see gang symbols, hand signs, colors and
affiliations of gangs in the Chicago area.
The Site of Big Shoulders is a not-for-profit (and non-profitable) 'zine
that features uncommon information and creative work by people in the
Chicagoland area. You can find the Site of Big Shoulders at ...
http://www.chitown.com/bigshoulders/
Drop by to check out "Chicagoland Gangs" or our other great Windy City
features, including photo essays, poetry, fiction and art.
Thank you for your attention!
-- Justin Kerr
Editor, The Site of Big Shoulders
juic...@mcs.com
The Site of Big Shoulders:
http://www.chitown.com/bigshoulders/
Tommy the Terrorist
A truly excellent site!
One thing that you don't indicate, however, but which would be very
interesting, are the borders of each gang's territory. There's a
specific reason for this.
If we assume that gangs do not rely on corruption within the police
department for survival, then logically, there should be no particular
reason for gangs to restrict their activities to particular "beats" of
police surveillance. They're as likely to be busted or hassled in any
one place as another, if there is an equal level of police presence.
Alternatively... if gangs do *primarily* rely on corrupt cops to keep
them safe ... then the borders of gang territories should almost always
coincide with "beats"...
does this sound like an interesting experiment?
juiceman
Tommy the Terrorist wrote:
> A truly excellent site!
>
> One thing that you don't indicate, however, but which would be very
> interesting, are the borders of each gang's territory.
Hey, Tommy! Thanks much for the compliment about the Site of Big
Shoulders. We, too, thought it would be interesting to be able to
include the borders of each gang's territory, but this information was
not included in the source material we used to generate "Chicagoland
Gangs." We didn't want to change any of the content, since we published
this material as a piece of "found text" (i.e. an accurate
representation of a public-domain document).
> If we assume that gangs do not rely on corruption within the police
> department for survival, then logically, there should be no particular
> reason for gangs to restrict their activities to particular "beats" of
> police surveillance. They're as likely to be busted or hassled in any
> one place as another, if there is an equal level of police presence.
>
> Alternatively... if gangs do *primarily* rely on corrupt cops to keep
> them safe ... then the borders of gang territories should almost always
> coincide with "beats"...
>
> does this sound like an interesting experiment?
It's an interesting hypothesis, but it would be tough to prove. I'll
bet that many gang borders are very fluid and subject to change. Please
explain more specifically your ideas about the relationship between the
police and gangs. I've heard of many instances where Chicago police
have allegedly shaken down gang members/drug dealers for their cash and
drugs. (I think a case along these lines is currently under review in
the courts.) Are you saying that there's a deeper level of complicity,
Tommy?
"Be seeing you,"
-- Justin Kerr
Tommy the Terrorist
In article <3496DA...@mcs.com> juiceman, juic...@mcs.com writes:
>bet that many gang borders are very fluid and subject to change. Please
>explain more specifically your ideas about the relationship between the
>police and gangs. I've heard of many instances where Chicago police
>have allegedly shaken down gang members/drug dealers for their cash and
>drugs. (I think a case along these lines is currently under review in
>the courts.) Are you saying that there's a deeper level of complicity,
>Tommy?
Well, just following the articles in the papers, you have cases of police
"shaking down" drug dealers regularly for money (and leaving them alone
otherwise...), policemen who are gang members complete with the tattoos,
a police union that warns the members on its public answering machine
that there's an investigation going on of "loss" of drug evidence, such
as when "lazy" cops take extra heroin and "flush it down the toilet", and
an overall attitude aggressively expressed by the police that they have
the right to lie in court, fabricate evidence, drive drunk, beat people,
shoot people, and ALWAYS have the backing of EVERY member of the police
union, no matter what the facts of the situation may be.
The experiment I proposed wasn't meant to test a particular hypothesis of
how the payoffs would be given. The articles about Daley's pet aldermen
in the Sun-Times should have made it clear that "giving somebody a
payoff" is a term for a large number of borderline-legal activities.
Instead, the idea is that since everything in the end has to come down to
interactions between particular cops and particular drug dealers, the
placement of boundaries should minimize the number of interactions so as
to keep things simple and quiet.
Incidentally - the "fluid" gang borders don't have to detract from the
experiment, because in the "primarily corrupt" scenario, you'd expect
them to exist only WITHIN police beats, where both sides have bribed the
cops. In places where different cops patrol on opposite sides of a gang
border, and each gang has paid off each set of cops, it would be
extremely difficult to start a war across the border, because the cops
would be under pressure to stamp it out right away from both the home
gang and the general public, and would throw the book at the invaders.
By contrast, if the cops are generally honest, then you'd expect that
gang border fluidity would be about the same at any point between the
same two gangs, depending on their internal political accommodations, and
would not tend to stick at boundaries of police beats.
Mike Stucka
Tommy the Terrorist (may...@super.zippo.com) wrote:
: By contrast, if the cops are generally honest, then you'd expect that
: gang border fluidity would be about the same at any point between the
: same two gangs, depending on their internal political accommodations, and
: would not tend to stick at boundaries of police beats.
You have a truly sick mind. I admire this.
How exactly, though, would one go about determining the gang borders and
their fluidity without cooperation of the police and undue personal
physical risk?
Mike, intrigued about the idea ...
John Napier
>
> How exactly, though, would one go about determining the gang borders and
> their fluidity without cooperation of the police and undue personal
> physical risk?
>
>
> Mike, intrigued about the idea ...
Taggers?
No not like wildlife. Check the graffitti. Isn't that how they mark
territory?
Although, now that I think about it, tagging them with radio transmitters
would be better.
Welcome to Mutual of Omaha.
Today we will be stalking and tagging the wild gang banger in his natural
environment.......
Tommy the Terrorist
In article <677v0o$cc8$1...@artemis.it.luc.edu> Mike Stucka,
mstucka...@abel.math.luc.edu writes:
>How exactly, though, would one go about determining the gang borders and
>their fluidity without cooperation of the police and undue personal
>physical risk?
Mostly, I'd wish that there would be ONE poor person on the Net someplace
in the bad neighborhoods of Chicago. I mean, theoretically it ought to
be possible, right? I get the feeling that anybody and everybody in the
neighborhoods where gangs are strong have an idea of where the boundaries
are, for reasons of personal safety. Or am I confused?
(*one of Tommy's dreams ... welfare moms crowding around the WebTV,
becoming infected with the spirit of the Revolution! B) )
tip
In article <6782jf$n...@snews2.zippo.com>,
Tommy the Terrorist <may...@super.zippo.com> wrote:
>
>(*one of Tommy's dreams ... welfare moms crowding around the WebTV,
>becoming infected with the spirit of the Revolution! B) )
as if aol'ers weren't bad enough.
as for welfare moms crowding around the webtv, let me ask you this question:
do you really think the general public would like their portion of tax
dollars going to welfare be spent on webtv's?
--
[ =-=-= want to provide financial backing for my film? email me! -=-= ]
[ *&$*&$* tip - my evil twin is pit - mailto:t...@blahblah.com *&$*&$* ]
[ & email is spam protected: replace "blahblah" with "stopsmiling" &* ]
[ =-=-=-=-=-= preserve wildlife; pickle a squirrel today. =-=-=-=-=-= ]
Tommy the Terrorist
In article <679riq$8...@eve.enteract.com> tip, t...@blahblah.com writes:
>as for welfare moms crowding around the webtv, let me ask you this question:
>do you really think the general public would like their portion of tax
>dollars going to welfare be spent on webtv's?
Of course not ... that's one reason why I like the idea... ;)
I mean, I didn't like the notion of ..."my"... tax dollars going to
subsidize the mining of Managua's harbor, or terrorist attacks on child
care facilities and basic health facilities in Nicaragua, but that didn't
accomplish a damn thing, did it?
It's funny though ... you'd think that bona fide welfare mothers would be
the MOST appropriate users for WebTV. I mean, kids who wouldn't
otherwise have a book to read could log on to the thing and learn about
everything in the world. Their mothers might have a use for a few
literacy lessons themselves, while they're at it. They might all get
some ideas about other places they could be, other things they could be
doing, that are better than manning the punitive detail at the ass end of
a capitalist society.
Of course, we know that Thomas Sowell thinks they should be subsidized -
he thinks that everybody using the Net should have to pay to offer them
FREE censor filters! But when it comes to offering them FREE <insert
useful item here>, that's another thing altogether.
I wonder if Illinois' NWO "Link Card" would even allow them to buy WebTV
from their welfare funds...
Nobody, Really
tip <t...@blahblah.com> wrote:
> do you really think the general public would like their portion of tax
> dollars going to welfare be spent on webtv's?
Probably better that crack...
Lee Katman
In article <679ukv$f...@snews1.zippo.com>, Tommy the Terrorist
<may...@super.zippo.com> wrote:
[SNIP]
> It's funny though ... you'd think that bona fide welfare mothers would be
> the MOST appropriate users for WebTV. I mean, kids who wouldn't
> otherwise have a book to read could log on to the thing and learn about
> everything in the world. Their mothers might have a use for a few
> literacy lessons themselves, while they're at it. They might all get
> some ideas about other places they could be, other things they could be
> doing, that are better than manning the punitive detail at the ass end of
> a capitalist society.
[SNIP]
Contact South Shore Bank. They fund community development projects, and
one of their ideas was that a new project might be wired and thus get the
residents connected (not sure if the idea was WebTV or PC/Mac desktops).
Also they were thinking about getting wired computers into the community
organization offices, the idea being that schools and social service orgs
can get connected and their target audience has access to the information
they have to offer.
--
Lee Katman kat...@nwu.edu
Pesky and Foolish
> Probably better that crack...
Oh, please. Half of the computer consultants getting paid enough to cover
lunch wouldn't know their asses from potholes when it comes to networking
and internet stuff. Now you're telling me that you want to take a couple
million kids who have never even seen pine and make their first exposure to
the internet a big box that whose keyboard is *optional*?! C'mon, man...
--
Sez Me. So there.
--
"Let the rabbits wear glasses!
Kin uh git uh Ay-men?"
Daniel
In article <67cdls$hks$1...@tepe.tezcat.com>, slack@SHAZAM!!xochi.tezcat.com (Pesky and Foolish) wrote:
>Oh, please. Half of the computer consultants getting paid enough to cover
>lunch wouldn't know their asses from potholes when it comes to networking
>and internet stuff.
(Umm, did I miss the link between these two?)
> Now you're telling me that you want to take a couple
>million kids who have never even seen pine and make their first exposure to
>the internet a big box that whose keyboard is *optional*?! C'mon, man...
But on the This one, it's GOT to be better than NOTHING no?
(And I'd be happy to see them able to buy the keyboard with the welfare too!)
Daniel Staples
dsta...@nospamyahoo.com
------------------- Current fave stolen .sig, this one from rec.audio.highend,
Physics is physics and suckers is suckers
Joseph Dunphy
John Napier (jna...@bigfoot.com) wrote:
: > How exactly, though, would one go about determining the gang borders and
: > their fluidity without cooperation of the police and undue personal
: > physical risk?
: >
: > Mike, intrigued about the idea ...
:
: Taggers?
:
: No not like wildlife. Check the graffitti. Isn't that how they mark
: territory?
Yes and No. It's how they try to mark territory. Remember that
they tend to be professionally foolhardy, and working in another
gang's territory will impress the other members, and oneself.
Kind of like the guy who goes into the bleachers occupied by the
fans of the opposing team, at a game, and waves his banner, to
impress his friends - and, presumably, the first aid nurse, once
he gets to her station.
As one of my students at Clemente once explained to me, as he was
describing his career plans, he couldn't be killed, because he was
"too crazy". That sense of invulnerability, which reality can't
seem to touch, makes it harder to make sense out of the evidence,
in things like this. "Well, under these circumstances, they'd have
to...", a sort of argument that we use without even thinking about
it, just stops being applicable. "Who the fuck knows", the local
response, is all too applicable, all too often, as a result.
OK, do you really want to find out ? Here's how you do it. Talk
to the locals who don't belong to gangs, especially the males.
In order to avoid getting their heads blown off, as they cross the
currently understood boundaries, they do little things, like
changing the direction of their hats, avoiding clothing in certain
colors, etc, to avoid "dissing" the gang whose territory they are
passing through. Do not, do not, do not go into a bar to ask people
this - at that point, you might as well have gone up to one of the
GD's, and asked him if the bullets in his gun were real. Better
you should ask in a church, where keeping you from doing something
stupid enough to get yourself killed, would be viewed as one's
Christian duty. Of course, the first suggestion that you get, will
be to get your white ass back to Lincoln Park, or something like
that (probably phrased slightly more delicately, but with that
general meaning), but after that, you'll get detailed information -
as well as a sigh, and a comment that they hope you know what
you're doing. Which, of course, you probably won't.
I strongly advise whoever is reading to not undertake this project.
But, if he must, at least knowing how, might maximize the chance of
his getting back in one piece. Amazing, how many people seem to
think that they're morally obligated to believe that Englewood is
just a misunderstood version of Evanston - so many, that one of
them is bound to read this.
Joseph Dunphy
I wrote:
: OK, do you really want to find out ? Here's how you do it. Talk
: to the locals who don't belong to gangs, especially the males.
: In order to avoid getting their heads blown off, as they cross the
: currently understood boundaries, they do little things, like
: changing the direction of their hats, avoiding clothing in certain
: colors, etc, to avoid "dissing" the gang whose territory they are
: passing through.
Point being, that the noncombatants have an idea of where the
"official" territories are (ie. where wearing another gang's
colors would be considered disrespect), as a necessary bit of
information, for survival. This information would often be
gained, as someone would cross a street, and be told "turn the
hat, asshole, we're Kings (Latin Kings) here". (Grammar cleaned
up for comprehensibility). If the rumors about which gang held
the upper hand were wildly wrong, the one that actually did would
be good enough to clarify matters, quickly, and forcibly.
So, just asking, in a relatively safe place, EMPHASISING THAT YOU
AREN'T WORKING FOR THE POLICE, AND DON'T WANT TO KNOW ABOUT
SPECIFIC CRIMES, but say, are just compiling a guide, to warn
people about which fashion choices, to avoid in which areas, to
avoid unfortunate misunderstandings, and you might get the
information that you are seeking.