A Democrat official in Chicago proposed a new strategy to address the city’s out-of-control homicide rates: just ask warring gangs to wait to shoot each other until nighttime. City Alderwoman Maria Hadden proposed the daily ceasefire in an email newsletter last week in which she asked gang members to refrain from carrying out gun violence incidents between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m.
Hadden’s proposal, created in partnership with a community activism group called Native Sons, urges Chicago’s criminal population to avoid daytime shootings in an effort to prevent innocent bystanders from being caught in the crossfire. Statistics released in February revealed that Chicago led the nation in homicides in 2022, with a total of 697 reported murders. Chicago has maintained that #1 position for the last 11 years.
A significant portion of these deaths are attributable to gang-related violence, and many of those victims are bystanders—some of them children—gunned down by accident.
Check out the keynote speakers and details for The Vault 2023 and secure your tickets!
Perhaps in the hopes of appealing to gang members’ sense of civic responsibility, Hadden’s newsletter featured a flyer encouraging the community to be “united for a safe summer.”
“Protect The Youth No Sliding While The Sun Is Out,” declares the so-called “People’s Ordinance.”
“We have to start somewhere,” Native Sons co-founder Tatiana Atkins said. “Our goal is to approach our city’s gun violence problem strategically and not all at once. Things didn’t become this way overnight, and change won’t happen overnight.”
Under this ordinance, Hadden, Atkins, and the Native Sons ask Chicago residents to “stop associating with and glorifying shooters, stop glorifying ‘switches,’ [modifications that turn semi-automatic handguns into automatic weapons] and stop wearing ski masks everywhere which perpetuates you as some ‘opp.’”
She continued by stating that, if shootings are confined to nighttime hours, bystanders will be less likely to be “out and about” and will instead be “proactive with the supervision of their children.” This will hopefully save innocent lives while also still allowing rival gangs to air out their grievances with gunfire.
However, despite calling the proposal an “ordinance,” no actual legislation has been put forward to enforce the daytime shooting ban—leaving the “safe summer initiative” fully up to the community.
Atkins anticipates that social media will promote the initiative better than the government ever could, and she claims to have gotten “more positive feedback than negative” from reaching out to gang members directly. “We live in a trend society, let’s get the right things trending,” she said. “The more media, government officials, and community residents believe in this ordinance and stand behind it, the more likely the people will align with the ordinance.”
Addressing the criticism that criminals by their nature would be less inclined to follow community guidelines, Atkins clarified that this is only a baby step towards creating lasting change.
“Not everyone is willing to drop their beef,” she said. “If you aren’t mentally and emotionally equipped to solve disputes in a healthy manner, if you can’t help but harm each other, do so in a capacity in which children, elderly, and those not involved in high-risk activities are less likely to be affected.”
This longshot initiative comes just six months after current Democratic Mayor Brandon Johnson replaced former Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot and began the seemingly impossible task of reigning in Chicago’s crime rates.
Overall crime in the city has jumped by 34% since last year, although shootings are down by 10%.
Add comment