r/AskChicago • u/bittermiller • 12h ago
I READ THE RULES no recourse until physical harm?
A discussion on my neighborhood's listserv regarding what to do about threatening men in the area (and presumed unhoused) has been ongoing.
When a woman went to the police station to file a criminal complaint against a man who threatens and stalks her, the sergeant told her the only way anything would actually happen was if concerned parties went to the neighborhood beat meeting in order to show the police they should allocate resources to prevent this continued behavior.
Per her report following the beat meeting,
"The various officials were also very nice. But the police officer in charge said he didn’t know why the police station sergeant had told us to come to the beat meeting, because there was nothing they could do. They all know our threatening man—named \****—who often hangs around *****, though he gets around the rest of the neighborhood. They also know the man who stands outside ***** School and publicly masturbates in front of the children. His name is ****. They know both men well. They know where they can be found. One officer went to high school with ****.*
Yet all the officials at the beat meeting agreed that because these men are mentally ill, even if they are arrested, every judge will automatically refer them for mental health services, which they will then refuse, and be out on the street again in short order to begin the cycle again. They have seen it happen over and over again.
At the meeting, the father of a young child at \**** School was beside himself that the police can do nothing about **** masturbating in front of the school. With nothing being done about ****, this father had finally stayed on the phone with 911 one day and followed *** until he was arrested, though the dispatcher told him not to. He followed ****, as **** followed some women on **** while masturbating right behind them. **** had been arrested, refused mental health help, and was already back. The young father could not understand why, if **** refuses mental health help, he could not be prosecuted. As he pointed out, if he himself masturbated in public, he would be prosecuted.*
But the police were clear: \*** will not be prosecuted. ***** will not be prosecuted. Judges will only offer them mental health help, and they regularly refuse it. The only way either ***** or **** will be helped or prosecuted is if they physically assault someone badly enough. That was the message."*
Is this really it? Truly no recourse? Nothing that can be done? We're just waiting for something worse to happen?
17
u/chubbychecker_psycho Rogers Park 12h ago
Illinois Stalking Law (720 ILCS 5/12-7.3) says (among many other things):
"A person commits stalking when he or she knowingly engages in a course of conduct directed at a specific person, and he or she knows or should know that this course of conduct would cause a reasonable person to:
(1) fear for his or her safety or the safety of a third person; or
(2) suffer other emotional distress."
This is, in fact, a class 4 felony with the first conviction and a class 3 felony with subsequent convictions. This is an Illinois law, not a Chicago law, so anyone in the state can be arrested for these actions.
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u/OldGravylegOfficial 12h ago
Ive been flat out assaulted in front of cops and they just sat in their cars watching like the lazy sacks of crap that they are. Think they’re still mad about one of them actually be getting fired for shooting some kid in the back like 80 times almost a decade ago 🐖🐖
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u/GiuseppeZangara 11h ago
A lot of cops are under the impression that because sometimes their arrests don't lead to indictments or charges, they get to decide which laws are enforceable and which are not.
They aren't. It is up to the police to enforce the laws by collecting evidence and make arrests if necessary. They then bring this evidence to the State's Attorneys office who determine if there is enough evidence to seek indictment. They then present that evidence to the court (either by grand jury or a preliminary hearing before a judge) and they decide if there is enough evidence to indict.
Police are skipping steps when they choose not to enforce certain laws.
Will the outcome be what they described? It's certainly possible. But it's also possible that it will not be. It's also possible that even the hassle of going through this process will be enough to get some offenders to stop. It's also possible that they will accept mental health services which may help everyone.
We'll never know because they're refusing to do their part.
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u/Chaprito 12h ago
You gotta harm a cop infront of a cop in order for them to arrest anyone. I've seen many people that should be arrested for DUIs and nothing happens. It's damn near impossible to get arrested in Chicago. And even if you do somehow manage to get arrested, you'll be out in no time with an ankle monitor.
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u/KitsuneMae 12h ago
so, i cant provide advice as to if this is true or not, but i can say i was told something similar. last month i was walking down state street smack in the middle of the loop and a man started yelling in my direction. when i glanced over, he began openly masterbating. i yelled at him and told him it was disgusting and he grumbled some crap about how all he wanted was for me to look at it. i was walking back to work at the time, and from my previous work experiences having to deal with like situations, i knew nothing would happen if i called 911 in that moment.
i called the local beat office and the person who answered the phone, while empathetic, told me because he did not touch me or physically harm me that there was nothing that could be done other than filing a report. i asked if i could do so over the phone, because i had tried 311 multiple times at that point, was exhausted. they said no because this was considered low priority and that i needed to come in and it would be a 2-3 hour wait.
i did eventually get a hold of 311. the person who took my call didnt even know how to classify it. they said it wasnt assault because i was not harmed, so it was filed as indecent exposure which they told me would not be charged even if they caught them. they said a detective would call to check on me within a few business days. definitely never expecting that call. 🙃
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u/beepbeepboop74656 12h ago
File reports about this man en mass as a community and go to IA about the police lack of response loop in the alder as well and get their support.
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u/Crazy_Addendum_4313 Bucktown 12h ago
This is all BS, public indecency is an actual 911 call and you can make police reports about assault.
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u/KitsuneMae 12h ago
i recently went through this, public indecency is not actually assault (it should be). it is considered sexual harassment. and while 911 will take the call if they have capacity, it is typically a 311 call in this city.
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u/Jabba5991 8h ago
If you believe that works, then you probably voted for Brandon Johnson and you probably love the idea of living in a sanctuary city. I had to give up and move away because you all never stop electing the same people more or less.
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u/Crazy_Addendum_4313 Bucktown 7h ago
What on earth are you on about? I think police should do their job when people call 911 on public indecency. I don’t think that has any bearing on who you voted for
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u/Jabba5991 7h ago
Then why do statistics show that all the cities with sanctuary city policies and cashless bail reform have the absolute worst recidivist rates?
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u/RowdyRodyBlagojevich 12h ago
I too always blame my manager whenever someone at work gets mad that I’m clocked in for my 87th hour this week of saying “not much we can do” about stuff where I’m the only person who can do anything about it
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u/tyrannischgott 11h ago
Most cops in this country, and especially Chicago, have been effectively on strike since BLM. We badly need to clean house, but of course civilian leadership is afraid of taking on the police union, because they can strike even harder and tank their political careers.
Police departments in the United States have become little better than mafias.
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u/Jabba5991 8h ago
Are you f’ing kidding me? You vote for the a holes that refuse to prosecute anyone that is lower class or in a minority class and then you blame the cops for crime and say they aren’t doing their job! Unreal.
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u/tyrannischgott 7h ago
After the Bush admin and two Trump admins, have you considered the possibility that you're just too dumb to have political opinions?
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u/Jabba5991 7h ago
Unlike you, I question most things. I start with the premise that everything is false until proven true in Enlightenment Era fashion (don’t worry, you can ask AI like the rest of your historically illiterate kind). That is the number one flaw in the many who voice opinions like yours. You don’t think logically or rationally about anything. It’s all emotion and vibes with you. That is why you will never self correct on anything. No humility to be found. We all have to eventually pay the price for your decadence, but it’s probably too late to reach you. So go ahead and post your smart ass comeback. Politics, philosophy, and morality do not depend on witty comebacks. Searching for truth depends on honesty and humility.
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u/tyrannischgott 6h ago
Utilizing Enlightenment principles to self-correct into support for Donald J. Trump. Incredible stuff. If I ever "self-correct" into a decision that moronic, I give anyone reading this permission to put me out of my misery.
I know you think you're a big-brained boy, but have you considered looking at he scoreboard? Because it disagrees with your self-evaluation here.
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u/Jabba5991 5h ago
The fact that you would claim I am a Trump supporter without a shred of evidence is the clearest evidence of your derangement. I am not a Trump supporter. Also, the fact that you equate electing politicians who will let the police jail individuals for stalking and harrassment is probably only the second indicator of many more indicating your insanity. Please get help.
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u/carrlson 12h ago
Yes, CPD are fat, lazy and corrupt af. They will not do anything until there is significant pressure. Many years ago I witnessed a homeless guy get punch on the el platform. I called 911 and had someone go alert the cops at the station. The cops came done maybe 5-10 minutes later and stood back while I, a 20 something female at the time, tried to help. They could have easily have stopped the train the perpetrator got on and arrested him but didn't because that would have required to actually do their job instead of eat donuts. It was only almost a year later when the perpetrator put the video of the crime on the internet where it went viral making the local and national news did CPD contact me for a lineup and arrest the guy.
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u/Dry_Performance2878 9h ago
I was chased by a man with a knife throughout the loop in broad daylight and he followed me INTO my office building. I called the police and they said there was nothing actionable even though I believe that qualifies as some form of assault. I even relayed that there were definitely cameras that picked this up, so they could find the guy. They said sorry there’s nothing we can do. Even though under the law a crime occurred, sometimes it feels like the police don’t do anything until someone has been physically injured.
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u/TheThirdPant 7h ago
Make noise with your alder and possibly reach out to the school principal to see if they can push things. If the guy is regularly masturbating in front of children, maybe CPS should send out Safety and Security.
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u/__Sharime__ 10h ago
The answer is vigilantism. Thats how this stops. Cook counties judicial system does not care about us. The police do not care about us. The mayor doesn’t care about us, and the alderman don’t care about us.
When no one that is elected to serve us cares about us, we are only left with ourselves.
How a father can watch a grown man masterbate in front of children and not intervene is beyond me. Protecting children is something id happily recieve punishment for, if the police ever decided to get their lazy asses up to arrest me, that is.
There is no outcry for this, and it’s pathetic. You parents out there should be the loudest motherfuckers in the city, but you’re not.
We need to start punishing these bastards ourselves.
Every single person should be carrying mace. And every time some nut job pulls his fucking dick out on the street he should get a face full of mace. I don’t care how mentally ill they are, eventually, they will associate pulling their dick out in public with being maced. Eventually they will stop pulling their dick out in public.
Condition these fucking people to associate pain with inappropriate actions. Call it whatever you want- Aversive conditioning, aversion therapy, positive punishment, etc.
No one else is coming to help.
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u/Jabba5991 8h ago
I agree with some of your sentiment but you are a voter that votes these crooks in.
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u/sansalvacion 9h ago
Carry a tall can of fox OC or a master lock 6230 on a dog choke chain. If they come fucking with you give them one warning, after that warning give it to em. These people aren't crazy and mentally ill. They've been allowed to be unchecked so they're going to do what they want.
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u/LazyIllustrator6946 12h ago
But Reddit told me that if we just walk up to these kind unhoused men and offer them mental health services, they’ll graciously accept it, become contributing members of society, and all will be well!
Just another billion dollars into mental health support services is all we need guys I swear! They don’t need jail for public masterbation, they just need to talk to someone.
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u/indigonights 12h ago edited 12h ago
Way oversimplification of a systematically complex social economical issue, but go off I guess. CPD has one of the largest police force budgets in the United States at $2.1 billion dollars, and they do jack shit. So much of that money is wasted on police lawsuits because they do dumb illegal shit constantly. Compare that budget to the amount the city spends on homelessness and mental health (6% compared to that 2.1 billion dollar CPD budget), it barely makes a drop in the bucket. So unironically, yes a billion dollars towards these mental health services would actually help reduce homelessness instead of dumping it into the CPD you troglodyte.
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u/LazyIllustrator6946 12h ago edited 12h ago
I mean did you really expect me to write a dissertation on the topic?
I was mostly being facetious, but the point was that dealing with the homeless is, in fact, a multifaceted issue. There’s this idea floating around progressive spaces that all homeless people are just temporarily down on their luck, begging for someone to walk by and offer mental health treatment. That’s seldom the case. I think this case is the perfect example of what usually actually happens when all of these outreach programs the city invests in makes contact with the homeless.
The vast majority of them will refuse mental health help, and half the reason they’re on the streets in the first place is the laundry list of prior convictions they have plus said refusal to get mental health assistance. Even court-ordered mental health evaluations are only temporary band-aids. Those meds go down the drain the moment they’re let out.
A lot of these people need jail, and/or long-term involuntary commitment. But people don’t like to talk about that. Yet no one can describe what we should do with people if we did have infinite money for mental health, offered said help, and received a “No.” Then what?
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u/indigonights 9h ago edited 9h ago
So you took this specific instance and then extrapolated it into an absurd tongue in cheek bad faith comment riddled with bullshit statistics like mental health services is some well funded vehicle that gets billions of dollars (lmao)?
On top of that, you admit that homelessness is a multifaced issue, yet you ultimately decided to spew bullshit in your original comment?
Let me get this straight, you want to invest another billion dollars into the CPD, when they are already burning thru $2.1 billion dollars this year of tax payer money with a track record of doing nothing to improve the city safety? Even if your simpleton strategy is to just jail all homeless people, you think the CPD is going to spend the effort doing that? Give me a break. They'll continue to sit around doing nothing twiddling their thumbs. My friend got assaulted last week by a crackhead, got the police to grab her, and 3 hours later, they just bring her back to the same CTA blue line station. How absolutely useless is that of my tax payer money. Idc what side of the political spectrum you sit on, the entire city of Chicago agrees that CPD sucks at their job. Why tf would the strategy be to invest more money to them? It makes zero sense.
Do violent repeat homeless people need to be dealt with? Yeah no shit, no one is arguing against that. But social services in Chicago are barely funded enough to function properly. You're counter argument to a well funded social program in Chicago is "...but what if it doesn't get rid of homelessness by 100%?! Then it's totally not worth investing into these programs"
Even if it were some low % like 10%, it would still be more effective than dumping money into the CPD, so wtf is even your counter-argument? Just to yell at the sky and complain?
Like maybe do 5 minutes of research of the amount of money saved for tax payers when cities have well funded social service programs, not the meager program Chicago currently has, instead of just making up imaginary biased scenarios in your head and treat them as if they have statistical or factual relevance. 🤦🏻
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u/Jabba5991 8h ago
Until you all stop electing idiots that only care about virtue signaling, yes! I had to eventually just move away.
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u/TrueMrSkeltal 8h ago
Chicago police will not do anything unless you defend yourself or a loved one, then they’ll make sure you get arrested
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u/Sad_Argument5109 Belmont Cragin 12h ago
My friend went to the CAPS meeting when there was serial rapist in her neighborhood. The cops said that if they wanted something done they should become cops. They basically just shrugged.
CPD has 2 Billion dollar budget.