The Chicago Police Department
(CPD) yesterday announced that it’s using anti-riot-style policing
to stop a supposed criminal trend dubbed “wilding.”
Police Supt. Garry McCarthy warned gravely that “kids [are]
coming up and causing mayhem downtown” and that “over the weekend
we had at least five or six examples of large groups of kids coming
off the CTA that we escorted around basically like NATO protesters,
which is the tactic that we used last year that was so
effective.”
That’s not their only tactic, though. The situation is so
serious, the law enforcement agency is also “having police prisoner
vans ready and very visible in case arrests need to be made,”
explains one local CBS newscaster.
What the hell is wilding, you may ask. “Smashed cars, violent
fights, and at times, pure chaos,” another CBS newscaster claims.
But, apparently, it’s also teenagers blocking sidewalks, shouting
mean things, and sometimes just moving in large groups.
But, let’s be clear: There is actually no such thing as wilding.
It didn’t exist four years ago when New York Magazine
swore that it’s “really
catching on.” It didn’t exist 25 years ago when cops coined the
term in relation to a single,
isolated incident. These are just random acts of delinquency
and violence—no different than the ones for which Chicago already
crafts
counterproductive policies—onto which the media has latched and
deemed a trend. After all, it’s easy to convince people that
today’s youths are always getting themselves into some really
crazy, dangerous shit. Remember when media outlets swore
the knockout game was real? Or that the new cool teen hobby was
bomb-building? Let us not even tread into the territory of
beezin’ and butt chugging.
Such urban legends aren’t always harmless. They create
undue social
tension and paranoia, and people start excusing bad
policies proposed to combat the problems that are either
nonexistent or misunderstood. In the case of the knockout game,
lawmakers across the country crafted
hazy, wide-reaching legislation.
Wilding is just the flavor of the month. At best, the CPD
is just talking up its own policing prowess. But, if it’s not,
people should recall the policies that McCarthy employed and now
lauds as “so effective” during the 2012 NATO protest: a militarized riot
patrol that was accused of dozens
of incidents brutality. Those protesters weren’t all peace
signs and flower power, but there’s no way to justify using the
same beefed-up law enforcement strategies against the citizens of
Chicago on a daily basis. As one Huffington Post writer
noted at the time of the protests, when the CPD isn’t under the
kind of media scrutiny it saw then, it behaves
even worse. What can we expect when the department, which has
spent
$500 million in the last decade resolving lawsuits against
itself, gets the media’s approval?
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