“On the Holmes Front,” with Frank Holmes
One of the prime new voices of the Democratic Party just got humiliated in the most delicious way possible.
The upcoming, highly-touted Democratic leader canceled a program that helped his area’s poorest, most endangered, and mostly minority residents…but he tried to impress party brass by extend it through an event they scheduled in his town.
And the company shut him down, cold, in front of the entire political establishment whose favor he tried to curry.
It’s no secret that Chicago is a town with a gunshot problem. To his credit, former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel tried to do something about it: He signed a contract with a company called ShotSpotter to help police find shooters ASAP.
A company called ShotSpotter places microphones around the city to listen for gunshots. When it picks up the noise, it sends the location of the gunshot to police within 60 seconds, so police can immediately deploy to the area before the shooter gets away.
Chicago’s new, far-Left mayor, Brandon Johnson, made a campaign promise to stop using the technology…and this week, he fulfilled it.
Democratic Mayor Johnson announced this week that he will end the city’s contract with ShotSpotter…but not right away.
He decided to wait for almost nine months, until September 22—exactly one month after his Democratic Party holds its nominating convention in Chicago.
The 2024 Democratic National Convention will nominate the party’s presidential and vice presidential candidates in Chicago this August 19-24.
Johnson wants to take care of the Democratic party brass, so he’s keeping the program running to keep them safe.
Then he’s pulling the plug on his own people.
That’s sort of like what San Francisco did this year, when the city made a special effort to wash the human feces off the street before Chinese Communist Party officials came to visit.
Johnson says Chicago’s poor people can deal with it—and the police can suck it up.
There have already been 169 shootings in the Windy City so far this year. That’s 169 shootings in 47 days. Believe it or not, that’s down from 228 over the same period in 2023. Overall, there were 2,450 shootings in Chicago in 2023.
There have also been 39 murders in 2024.
That doesn’t count 214 sexual assaults, 1,053 robberies, and 2,530 vehicle thefts so far in 2024—mostly targeting poor people in minority neighborhoods.
Last weekend alone, 24 people were shot and injured citywide. One was killed.
Four people were shot in a single incident alone, last Sunday in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood. It began when two men got into an argument, and one of them got into a white van before opening fire as he drove off. In the process, the man shot four people: a 22-year-old, a 30-year-old, and a 48-year-old woman, as well as a 53-year-old man.
Johnson, who pretends to be their champion, ordered police to “revamp” the way they respond to gunshots and “implement new training and further develop response models to gun violence.”
“Mayor Brandon Johnson just defunded a gunshot detection technology because activists accused it of racism,” said the End Wokeness page on X, formerly Twitter.
Johnson tried to explain that he wanted to replace it with “other technological advances, ya know, that I may not be aware of, that provide a non-police response to respond to emergency” calls. He said that, for all he knew, “There could be some forms of technology that give us a response so that EMT and mental health crisis providers show up. I’m not aware of any.”
“The approach here is to build a comprehensive approach,” said Johnson, instead of a “the trap …where we only look at policing as the only form to build a better, stronger, safer Chicago.”
Mayor Brandon Johnson just defunded a gunshot detection technology because activists accused it of racism
This is what Chicago is replacing it with:
1. Investments in people
3. Moving away from policing
2. Hope that some future technology is discovered that solves mental… pic.twitter.com/2unfm7leoE— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) February 16, 2024
One of the opponents is Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, who released a report saying ShotSpotter did not lead to many prosecutions. Of course, the Soros-funded prosecutor has made sure she prosecutes very few crimes of any sort.
But most people on the ground aren’t buying Johnson’s line.
“If ShotSpotter is so bad, cancel it now,” said Alderman Anthony Beale. “Why do you want to wait until a month after the DNC?”
“The only people against ShotSpotter are the community organizers who want to use the money that saves black and brown lives into their own pockets,” said Alderwoman Silvana Tabares.
Community organizers from Chicago? One of them was president not long ago.
OMG HAHAHAHA
ShotSpotter just REJECTED an offer by Mayor Brandon Johnson to keep their technology in Chicago until after this summer's DNC
The gunshot-detection technology will be disabled starting Friday in Chicago
Democratic leaders in Chicago are fuming at Mayor Johnson… pic.twitter.com/RBG2NZhe1M
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) February 15, 2024
Oen of the groups not buying Johnson’s line is ShotSpotter, which has said it does not offer seven-month contracts. Its contract ran out Friday, and it will only continue working with Johnson “through a minimum 12-month extension and modifications to the city’s current data and reporting protocols.”
In other words: If you want ShotSpotter to safeguard your friends in the DNC, you can pay for it, like everybody else.
It’s a humiliating reproach to a man who is turning out to be a worse mayor than Lori Lightfoot—which most people thought was impossible.
What better response could there be to a man who tries to have it both ways: Protecting his rich friends while ignoring the poor and hopeless.
And pretty much anyone would be hopeless in a city that elects Brandon Johnson mayor.
Frank Holmes is a veteran journalist and an outspoken conservative that talks about the news that was in his weekly article, “On The Holmes Front.”