Durbin Wants AG Holder, Arne Duncan To Help Curb Chicago Violence

CHICAGO (AP) -- Illinois Senator Dick Durbin has asked Attorney General Eric Holder to help lower the youth crime rate in Chicago.

Durbin visited with Holder on Wednesday to talk about the Obama Administration's efforts to reduce the increasing Chicago violence.

The two also discussed efforts by the Department of Justice and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley to keep Chicago school children safe. Durbin says more than 500 Chicago school children were shot last school year, and at least 36 of them died.

Durbin has also asked Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to help with strategies, noting Duncan's experience with Chicago schools.

-ASSOCIATED PRESS

Comments

[Dr Manhattan]

Of course Durbin would never want the AG to root out Chicago political corruption that drains the coffers for more police, better infrastructure, and better schools. Nah that's too easy and probably in the Feds jurisdication.


Good God is Durbin effing t ool.

[47th]

Amen! Don't forget Durbin's support for Daley's Olympic scam that will surely drain more money from schools, infrastructure, etc.

[DawnK]

Gang bangers should be treated as terrorists under the Department of Homeland Security. They terrorize neighborhoods. People are afraid to send their kids to school, afraid to go to the corner store, afraid just sitting in their houses that a stray bullet might come through the window. We have no problem sending foreign teenagers to Gitmo, we should have no problem prosecuting those who terrorize our own neighborhoods here in the US and sending them away as terrorists.

[Lakeview Greg]

We need to keep kids from killing each other.
One way to start, keep them out of gangs. To do that, kids need some very viable alternative to the sense of family belonging (however twisted it is) they get with gangs. That means better after school or summer stuff. And it means more parent involvement. And it means that money should go to community projects and improvements to accomplish that, not more money for CPD goons, guns, the National Guard or whatever.

You don't fight a disease by fighting the symptoms, you go for the virus or bacteria.

[DawnK]

The problem is that alot of these parents are also or were gang members themselves. How do you make a parent get involved?

[crookedcountyillinois]

The book on Durbin has been out for quite some time now. The voters apparently just aren't reading it.

[jayevans20]

They should spend the money on schools and improving chicago instead of the olympics. And the crime rate has nothing to do with Washington. I wish some one in chicago has the B a l l s to run against Daley.

[DawnK]

I think that gang bangers should be tried as terrorists. They should be covered under Dept. of Homeland Security. They literally terrorize neighborhoods. Kids are afraid to go to school and play outside, adults are afraid to confront these animals because of reataliation. They sell drugs, shoot and burn and kill people, rob stores and basically ruin neighborhoods.

THEY ARE TERRORISTS! Treat them as such.

[Whitley2009]

I'm sorry, but I don't understand Durbin's logic. We all certainly feel sorry for the Chicago kids and their violence, however, you have municipal police, county police, and state police who have jurisdiction of that area. I just don't see how the DOJ can reach over from Washington, DC and wave a magic wand that will make all of their intercity problems go away. Frankly, I feel its a stupid publicity gambit by Durbin.

[atlantajoe]

Durbin, what can Holder do that you can't. The job of keeping Chicago safe is not the job of DC. Arne did not help the crime when he lived there, what can he do from DC. Why do these cities like Detroit and Chicago have all of this crime anyway, you had the great one and never have had any evil repub leadership so whats up, control your kids so the feds don't have to. Spend the 500 mil on schools instead of Olympics.

[AuntiepoppyCock]

The money being spent on the Olympics is nothing more than blood money. I respect Dick Durbin immensely and if I had to name politicians I admired it would be Mckinney, Dennis, and Dick. However, Durbin and the rest of the elite democrats are about talking and no action. In a few weeks there maybe a vote that will displace over 150,000 women and children. Not including the tax payers who may lose their income. What do they think people are going to do then? Sit on their hands and wait on a sandwich? This city needs help and real leadership something the republicans and the democrats seem to be failing the citizens and the children.