On the front lines of the U.S. homicide epidemic: Milwaukee faces historic violence

[OCS: Open with what appears to be a tragic story – one that is relatively commonplace in the inner cities which progressive communist democrats govern before switching to your political narrative.]

Jeremiah Hughes was mowing a lawn on a Wednesday afternoon when two men barged through an alley gate. They were armed. Shots rang out.

Hughes died in the yard and was taken to the morgue and then to El Bethel Church of God in Christ, where days later he lay in an open, emerald-green casket as muffled cries rose through a hymn on a loudspeaker. He was 24 and had his mother’s name — Gwen — tattooed on his left hand.

Velvet ropes surrounded his casket to prevent people from grabbing for him in their despair.

“My only son,” said his father, Stan Lindsey. “Gone like that.”

Milwaukee is in the grip of the worst violence in its modern history. There were 189 killings here last year, a 93% increase from 2019 and the most ever recorded.

The jump reflects a nationwide trend. In one study, researchers from the nonprofit Council on Criminal Justice looked at 34 cities and found that 29 had more homicides last year than in 2019. The overall rise was 30%, though in most places killings remained below their peaks in the 1990s.

Among the 19 cities with more than half a million people — including Los Angeles, New York and Chicago — none saw a bigger surge than Milwaukee. With 127 killings through the first half of September, the city is nearly on pace to match last year’s record. Hughes was the 78th person killed this year.

[OCS: Rather than point to the individuals involved and their criminal activities, insert a political narrative involving race and police brutality – neither related to the murder of Jeremiah Hughes.]

The uniformity of the nationwide rise has launched multiple theories about what is driving it. Nearly all center on the pandemic — which has caused enormous hardships — and the mass movement against police brutality and racism, which changed policing and the relationship between law enforcement and communities where violence has long been concentrated.

[OCS: Blame it on the system. Don’t mention that the system is governed by progressive communist democrats who are relaxing or curtailing policing and prosecutions, emptying jails and prisons, and letting violent criminals loose in our cities (ostensibly pandering to blacks by reducing the number of incarcerated blacks), and continuing with a pattern and practice of political corruption that leads to fiscal calamity and the continuing decay of our inner cities.]

Did a society on edge, with schools closed, social programs shut down and people cramped up at home, simply become more violent? Were more people carrying guns? Did police retreat in a way that emboldened criminals? Experts say it could take years to unravel those questions, but the toll of the fallen has struck hard in neighborhoods across the country.

[OCS: This is pure bullshit! The causes are known, well-known. And the experts, primarily pointy-headed academicians with their statistics and theories, rarely cite the root cause: political corruption, malfeasance, misfeasance, and nonfeasance.

In what world does demonizing and defunding the police lead to safer cities – except to benefit criminals and the criminal justice infrastructure? Or retrospectively examining the conduct, the honest split-second decisions of officers, and then prosecuting them, leading to life-altering outcomes for going to work and doing their job? Yes, the police retreat – just like any other risk-averse government worker who wants to avoid a significant risk for a relatively minor reward.]

There are no clear answers in the June 16 killing of Hughes. Police have released only basic details from their investigation: The weapon was a “long gun,” the motive “retaliation,” and the two suspects were “acquaintances” of Hughes, who had no criminal record.

[OCS: Yes, there are clear answers. Hughes, the lack of a criminal record notwithstanding, either was a bystander or the intended target and was killed by two individuals. The weapon is of no consequence as it is simply a tool. They could have bludgeoned Hughes with a blunt object, knifed him, etc.]

Lindsey [his father with a different last name] said he believes the intended target was a young man who worked for Hughes on landscaping jobs and had a feud with the suspects. The gunfire missed the employee. Nobody has been arrested in the case.

[OCS: Parents almost always provide cover for their children and seek to find reasons that absolve their children of any responsibility for adverse outcomes.

If the intended target were not present, there would likely have been no shooting – unless the two perpetrators tried to make Hughes responsible for the actions of a third party.

If the intended party were present, there would have been two bodies, or the shooters missed, and the target fled. Something appears wonky about the father’s explanation of events.] 

The violence in Milwaukee follows familiar patterns, according to the city’s Homicide Review Commission.

In a city that is 40% Black, most victims are Black men, as are the perpetrators, who usually kill with handguns.

Most of the homicides last year — 54% — occurred in a roughly 30-block radius on the north side, a predominantly Black area where deep-rooted racism has led to neglect and poverty.

[OCS: The pattern is clear: black-on-black crime in the inner cities.]

What’s different now is that many more people are dying.

[OCS: No! What’s different now is that the story fits the current political narrative of the progressive communist democrats seeking more political power and money without proving that they can use either to benefit their constituents.]

[snip]

The neighborhood was the only option for most Black families, because deeds excluded them from renting in other parts of the city. Redlining by banks, which automatically disqualified people in Black neighborhoods from taking out mortgages, made homeownership a distant fantasy.

[OCS: Banks must enforce sound lending standards to protect their depositors. Issuing loans to poor people with insufficient funds to pay the loan back, intermittent work histories, or who live in declining, decaying areas are not legal or prudent banking.

Where the government has guaranteed the loans,  default rates in these decaying areas remain much the same.

Perhaps, one answer is “broken window, stop-and-frisk policing where taggers go to jail and are assigned to clean-up crews.]

Residents were also denied adequate healthcare and education. When Interstate 43 was constructed through the area in the 1960s, businesses were demolished.

[OCS: Where is the mention of the corrupt alliance between the teachers’ unions and the Democrats mentioned?

Where do they note the unions demand more and more money to turn out functional illiterates who are ill-prepared for the real world?

Here is your “systemic racism.”

Ask why school funds do not follow the children to better schools? Why does the union hate charter schools that hold teachers accountable for their results?

As for healthcare, anyone can walk into an emergency room and seek care. If healthcare were inadequate, how do you explain the ease of obtaining an abortion?]

Despite the racism, Pitts recalls a neighborhood that felt safe — a place where killings were so rare that safety never crossed her mind. As in many cities, drugs in the 1980s quickly changed that.

[OCS: Racism in a black area, governed by Democrats? How can that be with the Democrats in charge of “the system?” As for drugs, ask how our judicial and political system profits off the secondary effects of drug use, and we are back to political corruption.]

[OCS: Yada. Yada. Yada.]

[OCS: I find it amazing that the relatives of both criminals and their victims have much the same story when speaking about their relations to the media. They were family men. Men on the cusp of achievement or turning their lives around. Good people except they are now dead or in custody.]

A few weeks before Jeremiah Hughes was killed, his father told him he was going to help pay for a new pickup. Hughes was eager to expand his landscaping business, and Stan Lindsey wanted to support him in any way he could.

Lindsey enjoyed watching his young boy grow into a hardworking young man with a girlfriend and deep love for his large family. He had seven siblings and step-siblings.

Now, Lindsey stared at his son’s casket as Steven Tipton, the pastor at El Bethel, approached the pulpit and began to speak.

He told the dozens of mourners that he’d officiated several services for homicide victims recently and noted a pattern. Many had started as tiffs on social media or other disputes that once would have been settled with words.

“Then you see bullets fly,” he said.

<Source>

Kurtis Lee is a national correspondent for the Los Angeles Times. He writes news features, narratives and profiles on an array of topics — race, criminal justice, immigration, income inequality, the 2nd Amendment. He won first place in the 2020 National Headliner Awards for his series of stories about the COVID-19 pandemic on the Navajo Nation. Lee has filed reports from the unrest in Ferguson, Mo., and chronicled Donald Trump’s rise to the presidency. Prior to joining The Times in August 2014, Lee worked at the Denver Post where he covered state and national politics. He’s also reported from the scenes of destructive wildfires and mass shootings and was a member of the Post staff that won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news coverage of the Aurora theater shooting. He’s a graduate of Temple University.

A Milwaukee Alderwoman running for Wisconsin's US Senate Seat is accused of pocketing tens of thousands of dollars in campaign finances through reimbursements made by the city and using campaign finances for personal uses.

Alderwoman Chantia Lewis, who announced she is running for US Senate as a Democrat on July 21, faces five charges, including:

• Embezzlement over $10,000
• Theft by fraud under $2,500
• Misconduct in public office
• Two campaign finances charges
  • Intentionally filing a false report or statement
  • Intentionally accept unlawful disbursement

As a result of the charges, Common Council President Cavalier Johnson announced Lewis would be removed from all of her committee assignments"

"In light of the five felony charges brought against Alderwoman Chantia Lewis by Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, I am, effective immediately, relieving her of all committee assignment duties. Make no mistake that our judicial system presumes that every individual is considered innocent until proven guilty in court. However, until this matter is resolved, I am moving without hesitation to protect the institution of the Milwaukee Common Council, as well as the City of Milwaukee. <Source>