CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown has some tough talk about what it will take to keep young children out of the line of fire on some of the city’s troubled streets.
With one young child dead and another still fighting for is life, Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown said it's hurtful for everyone to see young children killed or severely wounded by gunfire while riding in family vehicles; and he offered a grim assessment. It is, he said, often a case of a parent who’s involved in a life of crime and conflict with others taking precious children in their cars.
"This is less about what police officers can do. This is about young African American males, young males of color deciding to live the life of crime, getting involved in conflict with others who decided to live a life of crime and putting your precious babies in the car with you," Brown said.
"Until you choose to live a different life, make better decisions, which I pray and hope for you as a young man, don't put your babies in the car with you."
But, he said, it goes even deeper to the conditions that lead young men of color into those lives.
"This is about poverty. This is about my economic opportunities, my perceptions that the American Dream is not for me, so I give up on the American Dream and I live this life and put my babies in harm's way," Brown said.
And that he said is what the city, not just the police, must work on.
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