Three Years of Nights

[roo_ster]

http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/September-2016/Peter-Nickeas/

Beginning of Article

It was the beginning of a three-year stint working overnights at the Chicago Tribune, covering any violent event that happened in the city after dark. I’d wanted a job at the paper, and this was the one they had. I was 25 years old. It’s only in the last couple of years that I’ve been able to gain any perspective on what those three years have meant for me. I still feel wrecked sometimes. I still feel drained from the work of chasing incessant violence. Drained from going from shooting to shooting to shooting. Drained from enduring the mind-numbing silence of a slow night only to be jolted awake, adrenaline on, into full chase mode. Drained from trying to convince my wife that the job hasn’t changed me. Or that the change hasn’t been so bad.

I lurked in shadows, riding around listening to the police scanners, getting close enough to observe but staying far enough away not to interfere. Watching for new graffiti, gangbangers, memorials, crowds. Listening for yelling, breaking glass, squealing tires, revving engines. For calls of gang disturbances, for the battery in progress, for the battery just occurred. For anonymous neighbors complaining about young men harassing passing motorists or young men selling drugs in front of homes.

For shots fired.

“And now a call of a person shot.”

I listened.

“Units in 009 and on the citywide, we’re getting a ticket of a person shot. Person shot.”

Two calls. Three calls. I’d turn the car around.

“Caller’s hysterical.” “Caller says he is on the ground.” “Caller says he’s not moving.”

Responding officers would report their locations. “Put me en route, squad.” “Show us going.” “Put that on my box.” “Show us rolling, squad.”

“Bona fide, squad.” “Roll EMS.”

End of Article

There’s not a relationship in my life that is stronger now than it was when I started covering violence. I don’t remember when I stopped giving honest answers when people at dinners or parties asked, “How’s work?” The truth is a conversation ender. I’d start a story, see things getting awkward, then power through it, apologizing at the end. It’s an isolating job. Part of leaving nights has been learning to move past that, or deciding whether to even try. Maybe it’s not healthy, but writing about violence feels like what I should be doing. It feels normal. It’s what I want to do. I want to help the city understand a little. That’s important to me.

The winter after I’d finished working overnights, Erin and I were sitting on our couch, drinking wine, catching up. I was trying to explain to her how that three-year stretch had felt like a fever dream, an otherworldly odyssey, and how the world had throbbed around me while I learned to keep my eyes open. For three years, I hadn’t been home on weekends, and when I was home, I was in a fog. The closest to alive I felt during that time was in moments of fear and stress. That had become life.

Lots in between worth reading.

To give you an idea regarding the sheer magnitude of what he was covering, the following website quantifies the violence:
http://heyjackass.com/

[roo_ster]

Looks like bayou renaissance man also read the article a while back and had hte following comments:

It's repellent, but fascinating and highly recommended reading.

People who live in such a culture of violence and social degradation (whether by choice, or because they can't afford anything better) are conditioned by it to a frightening extent.  (An excellent example occurred in a Chicago courtroom just yesterday.)  When frustrations boil over in such areas, they spill over from there to more civilized suburbs, and to towns that would normally consider themselves free of big-city problems.  Natural disasters can produce the same effect;  witness, for example, the migration of crime and violence in the wake of the dispersion of refugees from Hurricane Katrina in 2005.  (I experienced that myself in central Louisiana, and wrote about it at the time.)

It's important for us to understand what's going on in inner-city ghettoes and impoverished areas such as those Mr. Nickeas describes, because such problems are only a heartbeat away from becoming our problems too.  It's all very well to say that 'the government' must fix them, but the cold, hard truth is that no government can address them.  Poverty and social degradation can't be solved by bureaucratic edicts or political promises.  There will always be people who choose the 'dark side' of life;  drugs, crime, violence, and the like.  They tend to gravitate to such areas, and if moved out of them, will simply drag down their new places of residence until they resemble the old.

That's reality . . . and we'll do well not to forget it.  Mr. Nickeas has done us a service by reminding us about that.

[230RN]

Denver.  Recent.  Daytime.

https://youtu.be/igGGdZuZph4

https://youtu.be/_hJ0LapgVyY

And it's spreading out from there.

Son1 was down there last weekend and said it was awful.

I retired six years ago and haven't been downtown since, except for a trip to the Tattered Cover bookstore to pick up a book I ordered.

Just went in, paid for it, and got the hell out of Dodgenver.

I am 100% positive, judging from personal experience and reports from my co-workers over the years that I worked in an office on the 16th Street Mall, that the District Six (and Two) PDs kept a lot of this stuff under wraps, or at least soft-pedaled it with both feet.

Terry

[Perd Hapley]

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2016/09/01/with-90-homicides-august-was-chicagos-bloodiest-month-in-20-years/

Yeah, have more protests. That will improve things.

Wait, weren't the BLM riots the start of the crime wave? Hmmmm...

[Angel Eyes]

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2016/09/01/with-90-homicides-august-was-chicagos-bloodiest-month-in-20-years/

I see that Father Pfleger is up to his usual antics.

Pfleger also criticized Chicago Fraternal order of Police president Dean Angelo Sr., who repeatedly has asked officers not to volunteer for overtime during the Labor Day weekend.

“When the stupid federation of police president told police officers ‘don’t do any overtime’ to make some political point, go to hell. Go to hell, Angelo,” he said.

How very Christian of you, Father.

“In order to show unity and protest the continued disrespect of Chicago police officers and the killings of law enforcement officers across our country, we are requesting FOP members to refrain from volunteering to work (overtime),” the union said in a memo to Chicago FOP members.

Angelo has said the request is not a negotiation ploy or a job action. He said this is about one thing: officers spending time with their families.

I'm not buying that.  This smacks of negotiation tactic by the FOP.  That said, I'm undecided as to whether fewer CPD officers on the streets is good or bad, safety-wise.