Gulag Fact Check: My question to Mayor Lightfoot - Are you lying or are you incompetent?
March 28, 2022 - We know she is lying, she knows we know she is lying, but she is still lying.
Under the “correctional supervision” of Gulag Chicago, city residents have been force-fed the official party line that violent crime is down. We’ve been directed “not to believe our lying eyes” as, every year, the body count mounts. As Solzhenitsyn said, “We know they are lying, they know they are lying, they know we know they are lying, we know they know we know they are lying, but they are still lying.”
That’s why, back in June of 2021, I began questioning Mayor Lori Lightfoot about her party line on violent crime, homicide rates and shootings in Chicago and every single time she has denied that crime is out-of-control regardless of facts.
Lightfoot responds to my questions with statements such as, “crime is down,” or “the data speaks for itself, sir,” or “you don’t want to listen to the facts,” or “you are the rudest person I’ve ever met,” or “wear a mask,” or she threatens to have me barred from asking her questions.
Last week, in response to my continued questioning, Mayor Lightfoot once again doubled down on “the facts” about violent crime in Chicago. Her appointee, Chicago Police Chief David Brown is a mouthpiece for Mayor Lightfoot’s party line and, last week, he made another official statement that Chicago homicides and carjackings are down and murder clearance rates are up.
But, based on the City of Chicago’s own data, Mayor Lightfoot and Chicago Police Chief David Brown’s public statements are deceptive at-best, bald-faced lies at worst. Like Rahm Emanuel before her, Mayor Lightfoot’s administration has deliberately misused statistical data to cook the books on crime rates in their public statements.
This fact-based belief was the basis of my question to her on Chicago violent crime: “Are you lying or are you just incompetent?” The video of my question has been going viral because the people of Chicago and across the country understand that Mayor Lightfoot is lying too.
Since the “data speaks for itself,” let’s look at the City of Chicago’s own crime data (Chicago Police CompStat 2022) and let it speak in this blog:
Fun with Numbers
Party line: Mayor Lightfoot and Chicago Police Chief David Brown say murders are down from last year in 2021.
In the first three months of 2022, murder is down 3% from 2021 in Chicago. That is three less deaths than 2021, which was much warmer than the first three months of 2022. (Historically, warm weather in Chicago contributes to an increase in shootings, homicides and other crimes.)
2021 was Chicago’s deadliest year with 836 homicides in a quarter century. (Source NBC5)
In March 2022, WTTW released a report that stated that homicides remain on 2021 pace.
However, murders are up 24% in Chicago over the last two years (2020-2022).
The City of Chicago also has a history of reclassifying homicides into noncriminal death investigations and closing cases without charges. (For more, see the murder clearance rate data below.)
Party Line: Mayor Lightfoot says “crime is down” in 2022.
In Chicago, criminal sexual assaults are up 3% since last year.
Robberies are up 11%
Burglary are up 37%
Aggravated battery is up 12%
Theft is up 68%
Motor vehicle theft is up 44%
Total crime citywide is up 36%
Shootings are down 10% in the first three months of 2022 but up 23% over a two-year period (2020-2022) and 56% over a three-year period (2019-2022)
Last year crime citywide in these categories was up 12% over a two -year period.
Party line: Mayor Lightfoot says that carjackings in Chicago are down in 2022. Chicago Police Chief David Brown says that there have been 182 arrests for carjacking since the beginning of 2022.
Their data shows:
According to a pull of a CPD dataset, Chicago has had 422 carjackings this year with 24 arrests.
A Chicago crime website tracker, indicates that Chicago has had 305 this year with 15 arrests for an arrest rate of 4.9%. In 2021, Chicago had 1848 carjackings (for the year) with 106 arrests. That’s a higher arrest rate of 5.7%. (Source: Hey Jackass!)
The Chicago Police have begun including all motor vehicle-related arrests into a category called “carjacking related arrests” even though most cars stolen in Chicago are not hijacked. This figure also includes vehicle trespass arrests. (Source: CWB Blog)
Chicago Police Chief Brown’s figure of 182 arrests is not reflected in Chicago’s data. He should release his raw data to the public with detail on the different types of motor vehicle offenses that he is including when he makes public statements.
In Cook County (Chicago is part of Cook County), carjackings rose about 135%, to 1,415 in 2020.
In Cook County, carjackings rose another 43.5% in 2021.
Party line: Mayor Lightfoot and Chicago Police Chief David Brown say Chicago’s murder clearance rate is up.
More data needed:
At a January 2022 news conference, Chicago Police Chief David Brown said that the department cleared 400 homicides — a total that was higher than in any year in nearly two decades.
The January 2022 Chicago Police’s news release did not specify how many of those cleared homicides were committed in previous years but reported that the clearance rate for the killings was just under 50%.
A March 1, 2022 report by ABC7 said that more than 100 Chicago homicide cases were closed without charges in 2021.
Chicago has a history of cooking the books on homicide clearance rates.
A 2014 investigation put a spotlight on how at 10 cases involving victims who were burned, suffocated or shot to death were reclassified as death “investigations,” downgraded to more minor crimes or closed as noncriminal incidents. (Source: Chicago Magazine)
In one instance, a 20 year-old teenager’s rotting corpse was found in an abandoned warehouse, bound with telephone wire and gagged. Her homicide was reclassified by Chicago Police as a “noncriminal death investigation.” (Source: Chicago Magazine)
Chicago Mayor Lightfoot and Chicago Police Chief David Brown should release their raw data on homicide clearance rates, with total homicides subdivided into the number of reclassifications (death investigations, closed without charges, and noncriminal incidents with the manner of deaths).
But under the “correctional supervision” of Gulag Chicago, residents must accept Mayor Lightfoot’s party line. We know she is lying, she knows she is lying, she knows we know she is lying, we know she knows we know she is lying, but she is still lying.