Kirk, Rush to meet about controversial gang proposal
Chicago Tribune: Sen. Mark Kirk’s proposal for mass arrests of Chicago’s Gangster Disciples triggered a small protest outside his Chicago office on Monday just as Rep. Bobby Rush — who dismissed the plan as an “upper-middle-class, white-boy solution” — announced he’ll meet with Kirk on Tuesday to talk about the issue.
Fred Hampton Jr., the son of slain Black Panther Fred Hampton Sr., led a handful of other activists who condemned the Republican senator’s idea, which he floated last month.
Hampton Jr., 43, called the proposal a war on the African-American community and charged it would encourage police to stop, question, harass and arrest young black men.
“This is nothing other than a euphemism for an intense war to be waged against the black community,” said Hampton Jr., who chairs the Prisoners of Conscience Committee and the Black Panther Party Cubs, both African-American grassroots groups.
He and a handful of other activists gathered for about a half hour holding signs outside Kirk’s office at 230 S. Dearborn St.
“Take into account the history of how the City of Chicago has used such language,” Hampton Jr. said. “What we’ve seen is, there was the war on drugs and guns. That war made it justified … to shoot young brothers in the back, to close public schools, to make mass arrests under the umbrella of a war on gangs or guns.”
Hampton’s father was killed in 1969 during a law enforcement raid involving the Chicago police, the Cook County state’s attorney’s office and the FBI. Hampton Sr. was a rising star in the Illinois Black Panther Party, which Rush co-founded and helped lead.
Debra Johnson, a spokeswoman for Rush, a Chicago Democrat, said the lawmaker stood by his criticism of Kirk even though he viewed gang violence not as a “black or white issue, but a national issue.”
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., will join the two at the meeting, Johnson said. Durbin’s office had no comment.
Last week Kirk said he wanted the 18,000-strong Gangster Disciples crushed and would seek $30 million in federal money for the effort. He spoke to reporters on Wednesday after he and Durbin met with Zachary Fardon, nominee for the top federal prosecutor’s job in Chicago.
Kirk later spoke to Carol Marin on WTTW-TV’s “Chicago Tonight,” saying he’d met last Tuesday with top officials of the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The officials told him it was key to give gang members long federal prison sentences in another state and “render them completely ineffective,” Kirk said.
Kirk’s office had no comment on the protest.
Heaven forbid the City of Chicago try to arrest those poor widdle gangsters. You’d think Hampton Jr. would be concerned about the intense war waged on Chicago citizens through the gun violence in the city. But that’s probably a racist idea.
DCG