Chicago Politics

July 4th Weekend Safety Press Conference

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WATCH LIVE: Mayor Brandon Johnson joins the Chicago Police Department, Chicago Fire Department, & OEMC for the July 4th Weekend Safety Press Conference.

Transcript

0:00 Thank you all for being here today. Today I'm standing with Superintendent Larry Snelling, our Deputy Mayor of Community Safety, Gary Gatewood, our CFD Commissioner, Annette Nance-Holt. We also have our OMC Executive Director, Frank Velez. We stand here today certainly frustrated and angered by this senseless and cowardice act of violence.

0:34 Last night, our city suffered two devastating mass shootings, one on the far south side that left four victims hospitalized. The other was in River North that took four lives, and there are 14 people who are still currently hospitalized. our hearts are with the families of the victims and we are praying for full recovery

1:06 for all of those who were shot shootings like these are a tragic reminder of how far we still have to go as a city shooting into a crowd of people is it's not the best of who we are as a city. It's unacceptable, and we will not stand for that in the city of Chicago.

1:39 We are frustrated, but we are also grieving. We will not rest until there is full accountability. I'm calling on any Chicagoan who has any information, information about these mass shootings. I'm calling on anyone who has information to come forward, come forward to help us find these individuals and bring them to justice. It is going to take all of us to stand together against violence.

2:12 That is why we say that the job of keeping our city safe is not finished. But furthermore, we are still determined, more determined now than ever, to not allow these events to take us backwards. We cannot allow these types of acts of violence to escalate or be normalized. We are mobilizing now to make sure that this incident does not return and bring about more violence.

2:45 Our Chicago Police Department is working with the families, and victim services are being provided and resources to the families of these victims. Today is certainly a difficult day for our city. We all need to continue to come together and work even harder, harder to stem this senseless violence. I'm grateful to our first responders who showed up the way they always do, as heroes, saving lives and bringing calm to what was a very chaotic event and scene last night.

3:22 And with that, I'm appreciative of the superintendent of police department, Larry Snelling, and he will speak to you more about these incidents. Thank you, Mayor. And good afternoon. First, let me just start by sending my condolences to the families of the four individuals who lost their lives last night and the 14 others who were injured by gunfire.

3:54 When you have a mass shooting like this, it's always a brutal scene. The first thing I have to do is talk about the response and the response of our officers to that scene that you can only imagine a level of chaos rendering life-saving aid to those who are also injured. getting people to hospitals as quickly as possible the first responders the fire

4:25 department that showed up our paramedics that showed up to help out to do whatever they could to save those who were injured and bleeding to get them to the hospital for treatment you know last night shooting let's call it what it is. It was deplorable and cowardly. You roll up to a location where we have an event going on. Multiple people exited that venue. They were standing on the sidewalk. When a

4:57 vehicle pulled up, it was around 11 o'clock last night, and they opened fire on a crowd. They didn't care who was struck. And in a matter of seconds, they were able to shoot 18 people in a matter of seconds, taking four lives. The victims who lost their lives, four, a 24-year-old male, a 25-year-old male, a 26-year-old female, and a 27-year-old female,

5:30 lost their lives at this senseless shooting. 14 others were injured by gunfire. Now, currently, our detective division is working extremely hard to get to the bottom of this. We as a Chicago Police Department want to make sure that we bring justice to these families, but we also want to make sure that we take individuals who are this violent and this careless off the streets.

6:01 It's important to all of our residents of Chicago. and for anywhere else in this country to remove these types of individuals from the street. Look at how quickly and carelessly four lives were snuffed out. With the possibility of a total of 18, we have to do better. We have to hold people accountable.

6:32 And we, as a society, have to hold people accountable. Wrong is wrong, and when we see it, we need to call it. So we ask anyone who has any information about this shooting, any information about the shooters, you can submit an anonymous tip at cpdtip.com. That's cpdtip.com. It's an anonymous tip that could help our detectives get to the bottom of this.

7:06 The Office of Victim Services is responding to this shooting currently. They're out talking to the survivors, they're visiting the hospitals, and victim services will be available for not only the victims, but the families of the victims who have been harmed by this particular act. All the services are confidential and free. Anyone in need of crisis counseling and support can contact the Office of Victim Services by phone. The number is 312-745-6340. Again, the number is 312-745-6340. Or you can email victimservices at chicagopolice.org.

8:01 When we talk about gun violence, and this is something that we just talked about recently, it can affect anybody at any given time, innocent bystanders, those who are targeted and those who are not. These careless act take lives, creates trauma, fear across our city. Keep one thing in mind, this was an isolated incident at that particular location.

8:32 it was a space that was rented out for this particular event as we move forward throughout the weekend we know it's going to be above 90 degree weather throughout the weekend we have the nascar event going on in the fourth of july and we know during this weekend on the fourth of july every single year people gather they get together we have to do this response responsibly If we see things going on out there that we know has the potential to lead to violence, we need to do everything that we can to report that.

9:10 Report that to the police. You've heard it before. It sounds like a cliche, but if you see something, say something. It's important. Lives can depend on that. So what I can assure you is that the Chicago Police Department will be out in full force making sure that we're keeping the city safe and protecting lives from one end of this city to the other. We will be out there to do the work that the Chicago Police Department has been doing to protect people and to keep everyone safe.

9:43 With that, I'll now turn it over to Deputy Mayor Gary Gatewood. Good afternoon. As both the Mayor and the Superintendent have highlighted, the tragic events of last night have shaken our city. It is important to know that the victim services that will be provided, along with the Chicago Police Department, we have activated our incident response protocol. This protocol works with the Chicago Department of Public Health, our partners on the ground who will canvass that area and also canvass the areas of victims throughout the city, because obviously those victims did not live in the area of this tragic incident.

10:25 So we will canvass the areas of the victims and provide support there. Additionally, we will be extending our hours with some of our street outreach partners so they can add additional support on the ground to help prevent violence throughout our city. As both the mayor and the superintendent have stated, it's important that Chicagoans know it is our responsibility to keep them safe. And the only way we do that is by working together to keep each other safe. Our goal is to hold people accountable for the harm that they caused our city last night.

10:57 We don't need to normalize this because it is not normal. It is not okay. We're going to do our work to make sure these people are held accountable. We're going to do our work to make sure we can surround our arms around victims, provide services for those who need it. And I just want to take a moment to thank the first responders who were on the ground last night and early into this morning. Incredible work and their fast actions helped save a lot of lives on our streets last night. So they were out there, they were responsive, and that was helpful and is always going to be helpful.

11:29 So our teams will be in full mode, full display mode this weekend and throughout to respond to any things that we're seeing throughout the city. Our executive director of the Office of Emergency Management Communications has activated the Emergency Operations Center. We also have our Summer Operations Center activated this weekend as well. So every agency in the city will be in coordination to make sure Chicago remains safe. And with that, I will turn it back over to Mayor Brandon Johnson. Okay. Thank you, and I forgot to acknowledge Mr. Mike Milstein, the deputy director.

12:02 He also participates in supporting our victims. So we have the full force of government here today, but also throughout this weekend and beyond. So thank you, Mike, and thank you all for being here today. Okay, so we have time for one question. We'll start in the front here with Brandon. So over the years, we've spoken with hip-hop groups, promoters, venue owners, and they've all said the same thing about how difficult it is to throw these types of events,

12:33 not just in Chicago but nationwide. And maybe this is either the best or worst day to ask about this, but do you feel like the stigma surrounding these types of events are unfair? Does it outlaw hip-hop culture? But then also, was law enforcement aware of this event, and was there any increase in presence at the time? Well, the first thing, let me just say, violent individuals showed up to a scene and opened fire indiscriminately on people.

13:04 That in and of itself is terror and an act of hate. That's what we're focused in on right now, is that these individuals who are responsible have to be held accountable. and to the people of Chicago, anyone that knows anything about what was involved last night, they should come forward because we have worked too hard as a city to build safer communities. And as the superintendent has indicated in this isolated incident,

13:34 we cannot allow that incident to define us as a city. And it doesn't define us as a city. As far as police presence and what was known, I'm going to defer to our superintendent. Yeah, just to answer your question on a couple of things, you know, one, it's like anything else. If you had an Airbnb across the street from your home, you would want to make sure that the people who are renting it out know and understand who they're renting it out to.

14:07 That's one. I can't speak about the culture when it comes to this particular event. This was a private event. This wasn't something that was on the police department's radar because it is a private event. You know, we respect the First Amendment, but at the same time, we as a police department need to make sure that if we have information that there's the possibility of something that could lead to violence, we'll be there. So those questions are a little hard to answer, but when we know that there's a possibility that something could, some violence could occur as a result of something like this, we're there.

14:47 And it's not just for those events. It could be for any particular event where we have prior intel. And I just want to add to this one. Yeah, very good. Thank you. Superintendent, I know you said this was an isolated event. Are you looking at this venue to possibly shut it down, to give them some citations? Is there any talk about that? There's already a summary closure. So right now, it's been closed. Until we get to the bottom of this, I mean, you know, we had 18 people shot at this location.

15:22 So there is a summary closure in place, and we're going to continue with our investigation. I mean, right now we're working with our federal partners. The ATF, our CIGIC Center, is doing the investigation on the shell casings. So we're working diligently to make sure that we get to the bottom of this. Senator, I guess I'd like to ask this of you, but maybe if the mayor wants to weigh in as well. Can you speak to kind of the overall holiday weekend safety plan? And in light of what happened, will there be extra attention paid to downtown

15:54 or any other particular areas of the city just to make sure things are safe? So here's what we're doing. We're distributing our focus on violence across the city evenly. Obviously, where we know that there's a greater potential for danger, for violence, We have a more laser focused initiative when it comes to that. But at the same time, we're making sure across the city as a whole that we have a focus because it is the 4th of July.

16:29 I mean, violence could spike up anywhere and we want to make sure that we have enough resources in these locations to get it done. Now, do we have plans around particular areas? Yes. And those plans are around the areas where we know we we most likely people will gather, you know, our beaches, the lakefronts, parks, things of that nature. We want to make sure that we keep those locations safe because you'll see an increased number of people in those locations. But we have resources out everywhere and it's not just the Chicago Police Department.

17:04 We've reached out to some of our partners across the city to make sure that we have additional help. We've also reached out to our community members to make sure that they understand that they need to take a part in this and get information to us when they can. Superintendent, I know you mentioned this was a... Oh, I'm sorry. No need to apologize. I just want to add one other thing to everything that Superintendent Sterling said is absolutely right, strategic deployment throughout the city of Chicago. That includes expanding the hours of our CVI workers. We're going to expand those hours to 3 a.m., 3 a.m.,

17:37 and then we have our entire summer safety operation site where all of our agencies are working collectively together to ensure that we keep people safe throughout the city. She had a question from the superintendent. The question is, was any particular individual targeted at the River North incident? Wojo, we don't know right now. That's part of the investigation. Clearly, the group, there was some target. Some way. So this wasn't some random shooting where someone just decided that they were going to shoot at this particular group of people.

18:14 Obviously, there's a motive there, but we don't know exactly what that motive was. But it is safe to say that this venue was targeted. And can you give us a little bit of the narrative on the other mass shooting incident? We haven't really talked much about that one. Well, right now, we've got limited information on that. It looks like that, you know, you just had a group of people, not a very large group of people who were out. And we had some individuals walk up on foot and fire shots at these individuals.

18:47 So that's still under investigation also. Thanks. Hi, Superintendent. Can you speak to the conversations happening right now that this is tied to two specific gangs and concerns about retaliation considering that? Well, I won't speak to because, again, it's still under investigation. But what I what I can tell you is this. There's coordination, not only coordination with our local partners here, but also our federal partners when it comes to the possibility of this being some kind of gang conflict, things of that nature.

19:21 But we're also we're also making sure that anything that we uncover and there's a possibility of retaliation, we would have an idea of where that retaliation could occur and we would put resources in place to prevent that. Thank you. Hi, Superintendent. How are you, Heather? With the Illinois or with the United States House on the verge of approving the reconciliation bill that includes $45 billion more for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

19:52 Has the Chicago Police Department changed its approach to working with federal agents, now seeing that the federal government is not just targeting those with criminal records, but everyone who is essentially not a citizen? Well, Heather, you'd have to be a lot more specific with that question when you ask changing our relationship with our federal partners. Right now, our relationship with our federal partners is centered around violent crimes and our response to violent crimes and violent criminal acts.

20:27 That's how we work with the federal government. We don't work with the federal government when it comes to immigration. We are strictly prohibited from doing that. We don't ask people about their status. And let me just make one thing clear, and this is one of the things that's a little upsetting to me about this idea that the Chicago Police Department is working in immigration enforcement. When we do that, what we're doing is we're stoking fears in those people here who may be undocumented, who are also victims of crime.

20:59 And they're less likely to call us to report those crimes because they're afraid that we're going to do something that we're not doing. So I just want to be clear to everyone that the Chicago Police Department does not enforce immigration. We do not work with ICE when it comes to immigration enforcement. And we want to make sure that everyone in this city who is a victim of a crime has the opportunity to call us without fear and report that crime so justice can be served.

21:35 Thanks, Superintendent. I'm wondering if you have any information on how many gunmen possibly were in the River North shooting last night, what type of weapon or weapons were used, and when there's any arrests at this point. Well, right now we do know that there's a possibility that there was a rifle used in this. There were two different calibers of shell casings recovered. To the number of gunmen, I'm not sure right now. I don't want to get ahead of that investigation because it's still being investigated.

22:05 They're still pulling down camera footage and going through these things. So until we have more concrete facts, I can't give you an exact number, but there were multiple shell casings found at the scene. Superintendent, can you talk about where specifically the canvassing is happening since no one involved is from River North? Where exactly are cops focusing their investigations today in the city? Well, first off, the investigation starts at the scene because it is a crime scene inside, outside of locations.

22:38 Some of our squad cars are part of a crime scene where our officers took people to the hospital and they were bleeding inside of our squad cars. This is the kind of chaos that we deal with on a daily basis and the work that police officers do. But at the same time, as we gather more and more and more information, we will then know where to put those resources. Right now, it's still early in the investigation, so it's hard to say exactly where everything is. is going to be. So once we get a little deeper in the investigation, talk to more witnesses,

23:10 talk to the victims, start to get statements. We'll have a better idea of where we're going to deploy people. Hi, Superintendent. This is also possibly for the mayor, if he would like to comment as well. Alderman Riley is calling for Artis's business license to be revoked. Their license is related to operating a restaurant. They don't have a public place of amusement license or liquor license. And as you mentioned, the space was rented out. Some would say that the owners could have never predicted that this could have happened outside of their establishment.

23:45 Is it too soon to consider revoking the business license in its entirety? And do you support that? Well, here's what I'll tell you right now. It's still early. We still need to do a full investigation. However, right now, there is a summary closure. I believe that that's the right thing to do at this very moment, just to ensure that while we're doing this investigation, nothing else happens, right? It's all a part of the investigation. The other part of that, I'll allow the mayor to talk a little bit. Thank you for that question. What we do know about

24:21 this business and this establishment, you know, this was a business that, quite frankly, was a a restaurant that was a safe space in particular for the LGBTQ plus community. In fact, if if I understand their structure, this was one of those bring your own, if you will, establishment. So, you know, you know, do we have an opportunity to look more strategically around how venues are rented out?

24:51 Of course, we're always going to look towards finding ways in which we can, you know, ensure safety in all of our establishments. But I want to be absolutely clear that this was not a club. It was a restaurant. You know, the owners have demonstrated a great deal of thoughtfulness around just their business plan and ideal and its motivation. and, you know, as a body of government, it's always useful for us to figure out ways

25:23 in which we can innovate, retool, or reconsider our approach to make sure that, you know, we do everything in our power to eliminate these type of incidents from occurring. Thank you for that question. Thank you. My question is for the superintendent. And then in the past, you have mentioned that you guys work with nonprofit organizations over at the neighborhoods to prevent or fight violence.

25:53 Can you elaborate about what type of coordination are you working on for this weekend, especially in areas where we know or see more shootings, Little Village, Back of the Yards? Can you elaborate on that? The mayor actually talked a little bit about that earlier with the CVI workers. Look, each one of our district commanders has contact with CVI workers. These community violence interrupters are out there.

26:28 They are engaging with people in the communities. There are times where when we're in the downtown area with the young people, we have had CVIs show up along the beaches. it's important work but it's also important to have our community members because you also have community leaders who are out there doing similar work so it's going to take everybody so it is a part of the strategy it's always a part of the plan when we convene every Wednesday with our comp stat

27:01 we look at districts and we see how they're utilizing those resources to make sure that they're in place and we're all working in lockstep I think I'm going to bring our deputy mayor up to talk a little bit more specifically around even some of the community-based organizations. But to the superintendent's point, it's not just policing. It's going to take all of us to ensure that we continue to build on creating safe spaces in communities throughout the city of Chicago.

27:33 Policing alone is not going to get us there. So I appreciate the question, especially because we are expanding and extending the hours of CVI so that these community violence interrupters can be in places strategically and longer to provide more support within these communities. But Deputy Mayor Gatewood, do you want to talk a little bit more about just the summer safety strategy, particularly around other community-based organizations? Thank you. Just to add a bit more onto it, both the superintendent and mayor were spot on.

28:05 on again. We have begun this work some time ago, but ultimately we just had a conference call yesterday with a lot of our lead CBI organizations in the Chicago Police Department to map out where those deployments will be this weekend, where folks can be beneficial and helpful. Internally in the mayor's office and the mayor's office of community safety particularly, there are incident response leads who have the responsibility to respond to mass shootings, tender age shootings, and they coordinate those services across multiple agencies.

28:37 Just yesterday we attended a peacekeeping graduation with UCAN. I spoke to the chief executive officer of UCAN this morning. While they don't cover the downtown area, they're going to be expanding their resources throughout this entire weekend to provide more support. I also talked to Sam Castro out of IMBC, the Institute for Nonviolent Chicago. I've asked him to help coordinate along with Elvis Ortega from our team internally. what that response will be with our community violence interrupters throughout the entire city.

29:07 Again, as the mayor mentioned, those hours are extended, but also the hours are extended with our victim services partners. We also activated a few safe spaces throughout this weekend, too. Late night basketball, which will bring in over 100 young folks in each of those locations around the city to create those safe spaces, while also making sure we have the resources necessary with our police department, our fire department, the Office of Emergency and Management Communications, so they can continue to do the work that they do so we can try to help continue to lighten the load on their backs. You will see all of us out throughout the weekend.

29:39 He's not on camera, but everybody in the world knows Glenn Brooks, so everybody will see all of us out this weekend trying to make sure we're doing everything we can to keep the city safe. Beyond this weekend, we're going to continue our coordination. As I mentioned earlier, the Summer Operations Center, That group meets every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to walk through every issue that is impacting the city, every issue in violence, every large-scale event, how can we respond to that, what additional resources are needed, how do we tweak resources from the day before. So if something happened the day before that we need to adjust our plan to, we use that call as a place to do it.

30:15 We also have strategy calls daily with the superintendent, the chief of patrol, the commissioner, Annette Nance-Holt, and also Frank Velaz from OEMC, that is on the government side. On the community-based organization side, each of our agencies works hand-in-hand with them to make sure, one, we know what time they will be in locations, what we can expect from their coverage, and then we make sure they have points of contact with Director Glenn Brooks, the Director of Violence Prevention and Community Safety, Manuel Whitfield, from our team.

30:45 So, one, we also have those points of contact consistently so everybody knows who to call when something happens. The superintendent mentioned the CPD and CVI professional understanding. When we first came in as a team that was in a few districts, it's been expanded to almost every single district in the city of Chicago. So when something happens, there's additional support on the ground to provide resources and victim services to those families so the Chicago Police Department can continue to do their job of not only providing victim services and support to those families,

31:16 but helping solve those crimes to bring closure to those families and help continue to drive violence down in our city. So I hope that provides us some more detail. Courtney, last question. Superintendent Snelling, are you able to elaborate a bit on why statistics show that shootings and murders are up in the 18th district, what that may be attributed to, and why crime is down, while crime is down citywide, and what's being done specifically to address maybe some hot spots or areas that are contributing to those numbers that we're seeing in the 18th?

31:49 Well, one of the things that I can tell you is that when you look historically at the 18th district, there wasn't a huge number of shootings. So if you had two shootings last year and you've got four this year, you've got 100 percent increase. However, that's not making an excuse for any of it. We analyze these things as we go along. We look for conflicts. We look for patterns of practice, or we look for patterns in general.

32:22 It could be robbery-related. Any of those things could be issues. I'm not saying that's exactly what it is. But we do our research on it. We sit with our district commander and everyone in the central business district, and we attack these problems based on putting resources in the right places. So we have to do a little more research because we're halfway through the year to determine what all of those factors are. But we are working very hard to make sure that we keep crime down throughout the city.

32:55 And we do that, and I just have to mention a couple of things. You know, our chief of patrol, John Hine, who works really hard in making sure that the city. safe showing up to these scenes, showed up there last night. You know, Chief DeVries from counterterrorism following up with intel. And our chief of detectives, Antoinette City, is following up just in incredible ways with the detective division. The leadership there has just been absolutely great. Glenbrooks being on the ground. And then our partners up here, Mike Milstein,

33:29 deputy director over victim services, overseeing that, you know, Commissioner Holt, you know, just can't say enough about her and her team and how we work together, how they show up to make sure that we're all working together to clear that scene. And Frank Velez, you know, over OEMC, the dispatchers there, without that coordination, this becomes much harder. So the partnership across the board up here has been, you know, Absolutely great. The coordination with Deputy Mayor Gary and Gatewood, the constant conversations with the mayor.

34:03 It's across the board. Responding to something like this is very important that we have all of those wheels turning. But if I did not mention the initial response by our officers and by fire, I couldn't walk away from here without mentioning them. The boots on the ground, those officers who showed up and witnessed all of this trauma and responded, getting people to hospitals, using their Lamar kits to stop people from bleeding out.

34:36 It's just great work being done by the men and women of the Chicago Police Department. Boots on the ground, just amazing stuff from the fire department. And we're going to continue to do this. And I just believe things are trending in the right direction. Last night was a terrible, terrible, terrible thing that occurred. But we're going to continue to fight to keep those things down. Superintendent, can I ask you a question just for my colleague, Michelle Garda, who couldn't make it here? Can you address some of the talk on the street that perhaps this was a retaliation shooting, that some of the folks who were shot had been making fun of someone else who was shot and killed on 87th just a couple of days ago?

35:12 Craig, I like the way you stole that question. But just real quick right now, I can't confirm or deny that right now. um we are continuing to gather facts about this and the more information we have because i i don't ever want to stand up and give you information that we can't uh prove concretely right now um everybody's working um across the districts the across bureaus and we're going to make sure that we get to the bottom of this and as soon as we have some uh some facts that we can hang our

35:45 hats on we'll get you that information absolutely absolutely we we we look into every every possibility that that where we can solve a crime so yes okay just want to make sure that we thank you superintendent thank you again superintendent Stanley for your leadership commissioner Annette Nance Holt our executive director Velez Mike and Gary and thank you both just want to remind people again this weekend I want people to enjoy the city of

36:16 Chicago. You know, this tragedy that we are working through today, again, this does not define us as a city. This is still the top destination for people around the globe, but I need people to come together as a city to show up for one another in order for us to continue to drive violence down the city of Chicago and to prevent incidences like this from occurring. If you know something, you see something, you got to say something, you got to come forward. Our police department and our fire department has done an exceptional job.

36:47 They cannot do it alone. It's going to take all of us. I'm counting on you, Chicago. Happy Fourth of you all. Thank you.

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