Crime & Law
Those Impacted by Chicago Gun Violence Say Low Arrest Rates Continue Trauma, Halt Progress
For many people affected by gun violence, finding justice is an important step toward healing.
According to the Chicago Police Department, 56% of homicide cases were cleared last year, but only 23% resulted in an arrest. Gun violence advocates say discrepancies in reporting and poor communication with victims is leaving survivors without badly needed answers.
Delphine Cherry is a gun violence prevention advocate. She lost two children in shootings, but while her daughter’s killer was sentenced, her son’s case has gone unsolved for over 10 years. She said the detective she spoke with was told he could not work on her son’s case any longer.
Now she’s been left to do her own work towards finding justice for her son.
“Whenever I get some new information, something that I could use, I’ll call the police station and say, ‘Hey, I got some new information,’” Cherry said. “They’ll say, ‘text it to me.’ I’m like, ‘text it to you? I can’t text it on a public phone.’”
These problems arise for many gun violence survivors, Yolanda Androzzo, the executive director of One Aim Illinois said.
“So it feels as if, you know, we don’t matter and the case doesn’t matter, the victim doesn’t matter, the survivor doesn’t matter,” Androzzo said.
Rita Oceguera is an investigative reporter at The Trace, where she found that in Chicago only 21% of Black fatal shootings resulted in arrests while to almost 38% of White ones.
“So there is a large gap between those two,” Ocegura said. “If you ask above police officers, they’ll say that it’s a lack of resources in order to clear cases and a lack of witnesses coming forward … if you talk to survivors, they’ll explain that a lot of people don’t feel comfortable coming forward because they don’t feel there’s a system or structure in place within the police department to keep them safe.”
This disparity leads to further harm to the relationship between police and communities.
The Chicago Police Department says they are working to address the problem by implementing a series of recommendations from the Police Executive Research Forum. New technology centers, increased forensic staff and more resources for detectives are among the proposed changes.
“When there is no justice, you know, when survivors, those, those families, don’t have justice, it’s continued, re-traumatization,” Androzzo said. “If nobody is held accountable then you’re going to continue to see more shootings.”
WTTW News coverage of policing and police reform is supported by The Joyce Foundation.
