CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Chicago’s Brighton Park neighborhood, on the city’s Southwest Side, have dealt with gang issues for years, but now there is new one.
Neighbors believe gang members are now targeting surveillance cameras on homes and garages.
“It proves that in my mind, they don’t want these cameras here,” one Brighton Park resident told CBS 2. “Apparently it’s destroying or it’s interfering with their business.”
He said that business in an illegal business, associated with a neighborhood gang.
The man told CBS 2 he did not want to be identified, because he knows the consequences.
“I know the consequences. I know what can happen,” he said. “We hear the shots every night throughout this neighborhood.”
Alderman Lopez has had his own home targeted by vandals, who tossed bricks through his windows; gang members, he said, caught on security cameras.
“I’m surprised by the gang members’ brazenness,” 15th Ward Alderman Raymond Lopez told CBS 2.
Last year some blocks in the Brighton Park neighborhood were in the dark when the wires to street lights were cut. The same people, Lopez said.
“It’s the same group,” Lopez said, “and they think they’re untouchable when it comes to what they want to do in the neighborhood.”
The videos of the men coming up to destroy the cameras have been turned over to Chicago Police. Lopez understands many may be fearful to call police out of fear of being targeted by gangs, but he is reminding people they can call his office too and he will pass along tips.