SPECIAL REPORT: The Thugs Among Us

What are the causes of the current crime wave affecting our Chatham neighborhood and the Chicagoland black community at large. Is it simply people who are uneducated and illiterate that are behind the crime? Are the gangs behind the crime, with members with long rap sheets? Are broken homes, bad schools and bad parenting, the media in the form of MTV and BET at the core of the onion layers? For Chatham it began with the double homicide of two drug dealers at the Burger King at 79Th & Vernon in the summer of 1997, with the murders of Darryl Dentley, John Montgomery, and Jamez Nunley at 78th & Vernon on July 11, 2005, with the mass murder of 5 residents at 7607 South Rhodes, gangland-style, two summers ago, and most recently with the shooting death and maiming of two teenagers in front of the Whitney Young Branch of the Chicago Public Library at 7901 S. King Dr. this past summer, setting the stage for the installation of police surveillance cameras over a 3-block radius near Chatham's center. Are Section 8, former CHA residents and ex-offenders at fault here? Should CLTV hold a television town meeting to discuss this social emergency? Feel free to interact and leave your comments on the comment line and throughout this blog.