Police Show Up to Fenger High School Late As Hell Monday, September 28, 2009

[via ChicagoBreakingNews] Chicago police lined up in a show of force outside Fenger High School this morning in the wake of the beating death of 16-year-old Derrion Albert last week during a melee nearby.

Of course they're going to show up the first school day after the beating death; but where were they to prevent this? And where will they be to prevent future occurrences like this? This happened less than a mile from my parents' house where I grew up, and unfortunately this isn't as uncommon as it should be. The only thing that sticks out is that A. this young dude lost his life (RIP) and B. there were no guns reportedly involved.

The shame of it all is that this happened outside of a community center, where children should be able to find some sort of sanctuary.

"We want to provide reassurance to the public that there's a police presence and they can feel safe in the neighborhood and kids can feel safe at school," said Morgan Park District Commander Michael Kuemmeth. [via ChicagoBreakingNews]

Unfortunately, either Cmdr. Kuemmeth doesn't know the area he's responsible for or he's flat out lying just to calm the public. The fact of the matter is that kids don't feel safe at that school (in particularly Fenger, but other schools on the South Side as well), they don't feel safe in that neighborhood, and there's next to no police presence (basically the opposite of everything he said).

I remember when it was time for me to graduate middle school and go to high school, the last place I wanted to go was Fenger High School (or Corliss High School, which was the second option for dudes in my neighborhood). I had heard stories; which inspired me to keep my grades up and get into someone's gifted program for high school. That's not a knock against Fenger per se, but it is a knock against the idiots who were known to hang out around Fenger and cause problems. Dudes who dropped out of high school, hang out at the high school everyday all day? Didn't make sense to me then either; I wonder if they took attendance in the parking lot.

Also, here's an interesting tid bit for those not acquainted with how the hood really works.

This incident happened around roughly 3pm, around the time school lets out basically. But what you may not know is that also around this time is when police in the area have their shift changes, which grossly affects their response time to anything happening around 3pm.

True story. There was incident that went down involving a neighbor and he had to call the cops to file a report (which is pretty much all cops do anyway). It was about three in the afternoon when he made the 911 call, and it was about four in the evening when the cops finally did arrive. The cops excuse? Because of the shift change.

I would like to speak to the person responsible for scheduling shift changes around the time kids get out of school.

I did see a brief and egregiously pedestrian story about the Fenger incident on the national news, which means Jesse Jackson will be showing up for a photo shoot any day now (I hate to use my 'Life is like a public bathroom' metaphor, but this clown needs to stand up or sit the hell down; cause right now he's hovering and getting shit everywhere).

And in case you've never seen this movie before, let me spoil the rest of the plot and ruin the ending for you.

There will be a vigil (I believe it's being held today), I'm sure somebody is planning an anti violence march somewhere nearby, Jody 'They Should Have Been Done Fired Me' Weiss will point fingers at us coloreds, Mayor 'Black People Will Vote for Me As Long As I Reach Out to The Black Preachers/Ministers/Pastors/People At the Top of the Pyramid Scheme/etc. Around Election Time' Daley will wave one specific finger at us coloreds (for being colored and for taking away from the time he could be spending making his friends even richer via Olympic 2016 contracts), and us coloreds will hold our heads in despair after being scolded by not one, but two white men in suits. Fin.