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Chicago’s New Untouchables
On April 28, 19-year-old Jessica Hughes, a DePaul University nursing student, was riding on a Chicago train, when:
After a large group of people got off the train at the UIC Halstead stop, a man moved to the seat in front of her, turned around and attacked.
“He grabs me, pushes me to the floor and starts beating on my head repeatedly,” Jessica said.
The man wanted Jessica’s phone. It was in her pocket. A woman who was with the attacker jumped in and punched Jessica in the nose, breaking it.
An awful story. A story repeated countless times on mass transportation systems in other major cities like New York and Washington DC. Here in DC, where I live, teenagers are being murdered, and groups of teens are attacking passengers on the Metro [Last month, I wrote an article detailing this for Ricochet]. In New York, stabbings, slashings, and assaults are such a problem that the New York Post recently wrote “Another day, another slashing.”
One detail about the Jessica Hughes beating is especially troublesome. No one helped:
“If you were seeing someone else getting abused, wouldn’t you want to step in?” Hughes said.
Hughes said that perhaps more painful than the beating she took at the hands of two robbers while riding the “L”, is that fellow passengers who saw the attack, did nothing to stop it.
“I was yelling for help. There were two other guys on the train and they did nothing. They just watched as he beat me,” she said.
WGN-TV interviewed Hughes, and show the broken nose, black eye, and teeth marks she got during her assault
Thankfully, Jessica will recover from her (physical) wounds, but:
A day later, the swollen and bruised teen says it will be tough to ride the train again as she struggles to understand why she was targeted.
Chicago Police released photos of the attack, and of the attackers:
They are still at-large.
Jessica Hughes isn’t the only person in Chicago recently attacked while no one tried to help.
This past Super Bowl Sunday, Marques Gaines, a 32-year-old bartender at a Chicago hotel, went to 7-Eleven, which would be the last thing he would ever do. The below video is graphic and hard to watch, but a record of exactly what happened to this innocent man.
If you would rather not watch it, know that Gaines was punched and knocked unconscious into a crosswalk outside the 7-Eleven. He laid there for minutes, while people approached him, only to rob him. Nobody stopped to help. Nobody dragged his motionless body out of the street. Minutes later, still in the crosswalk, a taxi ran him over.
On April 29, the day after Jessica Hughes was attacked, the Chicago Tribune reported that Gaines’ death was declared a homicide:
The death of a Magnificent Mile hotel bartender who died Super Bowl Sunday after being punched and then run over by a taxi as he lay unconscious in the street has been ruled a homicide, officials said Friday.
Marques Gaines, 32, died of multiple injuries from being run over by the taxi early on the morning of Feb. 7, but his death also was attributable to the assault that left him in the street, the Cook County medical examiner’s office said.
Gaines’ family had maintained from the beginning that they considered his death a homicide, and relatives were pleased with the medical examiner’s ruling, according to Drexina Nelson, Gaines’ first cousin.
Chicago doesn’t have a monopoly on people doing nothing to help others in need, but Chicago has an obvious problem. We need to ask ourselves why. Are people afraid of getting hurt themselves? There’s a good chance that the people who robbed and killed Jessica Hughes and Marques Gaines, would have killed or seriously injured anyone who tried to get involved. In Chicago, you most likely don’t have a gun to defend yourself. That always puts the odds in the attackers’ favor.
Or have we become so self-absorbed as a people that we have lost empathy and the ability to care for strangers in need? Are we too busy staring down at our smartphones, instead of surveying the world around us, aware of our increasingly dangerous surroundings.
Or are we simply afraid of lawsuits if we get involved? There was a recent story where a homeowner is being sued by the convicted burglar who shot him.
We also need to address the fact that attacks in Chicago happen in a city with arguably the strictest gun control measures in America. The vast majority of Chicago residents aren’t able to effectively arm themselves for self-protection. People who use mass transit in Chicago, and other Democrat-run cities with similar draconian gun control laws, are sitting ducks.
When the police can’t always be there to protect you, when you can’t carry a gun for self-defense, and when people will sit and watch as someone is assaulted or killed, how can you confidently walk the streets of Chicago, or use its mass transit? You can’t. This is a depressing and sobering reality of life in 2016 — in Chicago and in many places all around the country.
Hillary Clinton, who herself was born in Chicago, once said “It takes a village.” It seems that the “village” of Chicago is ignoring her advice, and there is a new generation of “Untouchables.”
Published in Guns, Policing
Obama’s America, coming to a city near you.
Americans everywhere are taught to not intervene during any crime, but rather rely on police totally even when no police are in sight.
Ricochet’s officers have often reminded us of the danger of intervention. Even a fistfight can turn deadly. But we cannot share security without sharing risks.
This is what totalitarian government looks like. You may do nothing without the state’s permission. Even in Texas, no gun owner defends his home without soon worrying that he too will be charged with a crime.
But the truth remains: When seconds count, the police are just minutes away.
If you are in an area where you can’t defend yourself, leave. May sound callous but what over option do you have?
‘An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.’ Robert Heinlein.
Outside that what would intervening get you? LEO will most likely arrest you and you are very likely get charged with something. If you happen to be white and the other party not white there is a very good chance of a SJW firestorm leading to you being fired, death threats, personal info published on social media, etc.
If you see such an event the smart thing is to ignore it and get as far away from it as possible. We live in a time where it is best to keep ones head down, mouth shut, see nothing, hear nothing.
Any man that sits by and watches a thug punch a 19 year old girl in the face while pinning her to the ground is a pure coward and dishonorable person. Period. Anyone here arguing otherwise is a disgrace.
I agree that, despite any likely entanglements with the law, any person should attempt whatever possible to help the victim and stop the criminal. Conscience is not written by the laws of men.
If a person lacks the ability to help directly, then running and alerting others more capable — preferably police officers — is an option.
Thank you Black Lives Matter. Thank you anti-cop libertarians.
One of my personal articles of faith: If you don’t have a firearm, you’re chum.
The non-inervening bystander phenomenon is not due strictly to apathy. In a high-stress scenario, the adrenaline dump does not result in a “fight or flight” syndrome. It results in a “fight, flight, or freeze” syndrome. Individuals who are not trained for and/or have not been prepared for appropriate behaviors during a violent encounter will, almost invariably, freeze up.
Look at post-violence interviews. The phrase one hears over and over from both victims and witnesses is “I couldn’t believe it was happening.” That induces freeze.
As for the miscreants that robbed the downed bartender instead of helping, I got nothin’. They’re scum.
John:
I understand the sentiment, but the comments raise some important issues regarding the complexities of stepping in in this age of political and legal risk. It’s a bit over the top to call others cowards when all they are doing is pointing out some problems which may have lead to the present anxiety about getting involved.
Just a thought.
I just sent your post to my sister and daughter who plan on being in D.C. from June 1-6 for the Reason Rally. The reason for the rally sickens me, but my sister wants to go and is paying all the expenses for my daughter to accompany her. They probably won’t let my daughter carry and her service dog is the biggest wuss you can imagine.
Don’t know what to say, as I sit horrified. How could people just let that man lie in the street? All one would have to do is stand and ward off the traffic at a minimum. I can only think, what if it were me lying there, or a loved one?
This was my thought. I tried to put myself in the position of someone else on the train with the girl and wondered what I would do. And truthfully, I don’t know. I’d like to think that I’d try to do something, but honestly, I’d probably be too terrified to do anything but sit there. And if I’m not sure I would get involved, I don’t think I should judge anyone else too harshly for not getting involved either.
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This, though, is a totally different story. As someone said earlier, at the very least I think I’d be trying to ward off traffic while I waited for the ambulance to arrive.
If I remember correctly from my CCW class, you are not allowed to carry concealed on public transportation in Illinois.
And, of course, until recently, it was “illegal” to posses a handgun in the city at all.
As David Horowitz never tires of pointing out: our violent street statistics are all skewed by very small areas in the country that are all controlled by the Democratic Party.
Without these areas our statistics for violent crime drops dramatically.
And by race, which is why this does not get discussed. The murder rate of whites in America is not substantially higher than most European nations. The murder rate of AAs in this country is comparable to some of the highest murder rates in the world.
I live in Chicago; I love Chicago. But this clinches it for me. It’s time to leave.
The video shows the depraved cultures of high crime areas, and the “see no evil” custom that results from an environment of fear.
In a low-income apartment complex of Houston, a lady once told me so many police were present because there had been a murder. “I was walking my dog when a man told me, ‘You better leave. There’s going to be a killing.’ ” I’m paraphrasing, but the point is that murder was such an unremarkable action to this thug that he didn’t mind telling a stranger he was about to kill one of her neighbors. Perhaps he didn’t even care if he was eventually caught.
These are areas where schools are daycares with students openly threatening teachers. Fathers are rare. Welfare checks are as common as decrepit corner stores and graffiti.
I can well imagine the fear of joining that beaten man on the ground if I stopped my car and got out to move him while so many thugs lingered. Even with a handgun, that would require extraordinary courage.
It’s easier to fight the gradual descent into corruption than to stand up for justice once corruption has thoroughly transformed an area. That goes for politics and culture at any level. Broken windows.
This sounds exactly like the 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese, as chronicled in the 1966 song “Outside of a Small Circle of Friends” by Phil Ochs.
(Although the level of bystander indifference may have been amplified; there is some debate about the number of people who could actually tell there was an attack going on.)
Weirdly enough, her murderer died in prison just last week.
Let’s not fall into a racialist snare here. In England there is the phenomenon of ASBOs, an acronym for Anti-Social Behavior Order. The kids who fall into this group are mostly white and they exhibit the same appalling savagery we see in urban America (and increasingly in rural, mostly white, parts of the country). It’s culture, not pigmentation.
I live in an integrated apartment building in an integrated neighborhood in Chicago and go about my day without undue worry. If I see a young African-American fellow coming toward me wearing a trench coat with a Wall Street Journal tucked under his arm he’ll get a smile and a “hey, how ’bout those Cubs” greeting. If I see some young people skulking about in a doorway I will steer clear, no matter what their race. It’s sad one has to assemble such urban radar, but there it is. The problem is not race but culture, both home-grown and that which is fostered and protected by the Progressive media/academic/political complex.
Urban thug culture is doing the killing, not race.
85 years of Democratic rule?
The incident on the el train looks like there was maybe only one other person on the train car, and at the other end facing away from the incident. If the person had headphones in, it’s very likely the other passenger had no idea what was going on.
Huh…
I can’t help but wonder if there’s a motivating force behind insane lawsuits like this. Lawyers making money *and* reducing the value of owning a firearm?
The lawyers may make money,but they will never reduce the value of owning a firearm. What’s the old saying? “Better to let 12 judge you than six carry you”.
I hate to say it, but I’m with Jesse Jackson on this.
Well said. But I’ll expand on the point. Getting involved does not automatically mean diving into the melee and throwing punches. If you’re so qualified, get to it, but even acknowledging the event changes the dynamic of the attack in that there are now additional folks to deal with. Standing 5 feet away and screaming “stop it! Leave her alone!” could be all that it takes. The victim could fight back or get up and run, the criminals could become distracted or decide to make their own escape, and most importantly, you make it easier for other people to assist. Criminals are taking a calculated risk when attacking- they are counting on non-intervention. Don’t walk away, you have far more power than you realize.
Not my city…not while I draw breath
No disagreement. I live in Oak Park and work in the loop, and I’m quite comfortable in a mixed-race environment. The culture of AAs that live in Oak Park is noticeably different from those that live a block away in the Austin neighborhood
Unfortunately, the FBI does not track crime statistics by culture. They do by race.
Is Austin Boulevard really that significant a cultural barrier?
I agree with Boss Mongo: many people “freeze”. And these things happen quickly, so that even a few seconds of immobility may be enough to let the crime happen without intervention.
Training definitely helps, but having a certain personality helps too. There are those odd souls who tend to jump forward when they something happens. I know, because I’m one of them.
When I was maybe 19, I was standing with two friends on the Champs Elysee in Paris when a guy on a bicycle got hit by a car; my two friends froze and I darted forward. I’ve intervened in two domestic violence incidents on the street, once in New York and once in DC. Both ended reasonably well, but I have it on good authority that I could have been punched, or stabbed, or sued; so is this courage or just stupidity combined (so far) with luck?
I have noticed that, if everyone around me has frozen, they will un-freeze if given direct instructions (e.g. “you—blue jacket—call 911!”).