10-May-19 – Although frustrated with a seemingly lenient court system, the commander of Chicago Police Department’s 18th district says arrests will be made whenever large groups of young people travel downtown to stir up trouble.

“We’ll take the heat from it all day long,” said Commander Daniel O’Shea at a forum on May 6 hosted by Streeterville Organization of Active Residents. “We monitor every...large group that comes down here and when we see criminal activity, we’re going to address it. We’re going to make the arrests.”

The most recent incidents happened on April 17, starting at about 9 p.m., when Chicago police estimate 500 teens and young adults moved through the Loop, mainly on State Street between Randolph Street and Wacker Drive. 31 juveniles – 23 males and eight females, all of them 15 to 17 years old – were taken into custody and charged with various offenses such as disorderly conduct, disorderly mob action, resisting arrest, and battery.

Young people fought among themselves and disrupted traffic. About 200 police officers were needed to deal with the crowd.

Of 21 people arrested near the Magnificent Mile on April 6, one was 11 years old. A 15-year-old girl was arrested for trying to punch a police officer. One teen brandished a realistic BB gun.

A real gun was pulled by a man, believed to be a security guard, on two younger men attacking him near McDonald’s at 10 East Chicago Avenue, next to the CTA Red Line station at Chicago & State.

(Left) Frames from a video showing what appears to be a security guard with a gun drawn on a man involved in incidents near the Mag Mile on April 6.

According to O’Shea, police are monitoring social media, looking for signs that a large group is approaching downtown. If CTA personnel see groups jumping over turnstiles to get onto a train, O’Shea says they will be taken off the train at the next stop.

“Unfortunately, the Chicago Public Schools gives them [CTA] cards...to get to and from school, and a lot of them are using them on the weekends to come down.”

O’Shea says police resources have to be pulled from other neighborhoods to deal with large groups downtown.

“We want them to come down and behave and enjoy downtown just like everyone else but...they’re fighting amongst themselves for whatever reason. And then when we go to arrest [them] that’s when they turn and kind of take it out on us. But...we’re going to continue to overwhelm these large groups of kids...with police presence and we won’t tolerate any criminal activity.”

(Right) Audience members listen to panelists at a Safety Forum hosted by Streeterville Organization for Active Residents.

O’Shea says that in previous incidents, representatives of Chicago Public Schools had some success with meeting groups of young people at the CTA station at Chicago & State and persuading some of them to go back home.

Bail bonds too easy to get, says commander

O’Shea expressed frustration with Circuit Court judges giving defendants, both juveniles and adults, personal recognizance bonds, or I-Bonds, requiring them to pay nothing to be released but allowing the sheriff to collect a bail amount if defendants do not show up in court.

“They’re giving a lot of people I-bonds that should be sitting in jail,” said O’Shea. “We’re arresting people over and over again.”

He says police officers are frustrated with the criminal justice system.

“There is a formula for keeping the city safe and it’s not just the police department. It requires our partners in the [Cook County] State’s Attorney’s office, the Cook County Sheriff, who runs the jail, and the Illinois Department of Corrections. And when we’re on the same page, all four of us, the crime goes down. But unfortunately, that’s not where we’re at right now.”