Are Mob Attacks Drowning Out Plight Of Poorer Neighborhoods?
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Have news reports about mobs of teenagers rampaging along the Gold Coast and Streeterville eclipsed stories about ongoing gang violence in poorer neighborhoods?
As WBBM Newsradio 780 Political Editor Craig Dellimore reports, a reporter raised that issue at a news conference with Mayor Rahm Emanuel Wednesday, and the mayor said that's a good question.
"You're going to have to, again, make your own judgment about your professional standards," Emanuel said, "and what I mean by that is not a challenge, so don't everybody get their back up. There are other incidences that happened over the weekend? How was the coverage of those versus this? You'll evaluate that."
LISTEN: Newsradio 780 Political Editor Craig Dellimore reports
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Mayor Emanuel says it's the city's job to keep all neighborhoods safe, but deciding what to report is the job of the media.
Concerns have been expressed previously that violence in the city's poorer neighborhoods is receiving less attention. Earlier this week, U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) addressed the issue at a discussion about crime and public safety in the Chatham neighborhood.
"You know as well as I – shootings, killings, and flash mobs," Rush said Monday. "This is a new one now. Flash mobs, pepper spray assaults by young men have dominated this weekend's news. I'm disturbed because it happens on the South Side on a regular basis. It seems as though when it happens on the North Side, then it's newsworthy."
Meanwhile, African-American teens have expressed concern that they will be subjected to racial profiling as a result of the mob incidents.
Many community leaders say situation makes society label black males guilty by association.
"Almost any black man basically who wears a white shirt and dark pants is going to be looked at suspiciously. And that's very unfortunate," Phillip Jackson of the Black Star Project told CBS 2's Pamela Jones Wednesday.
Several high-profile mob attacks have hit the headlines in the past week.
Two men were attacked in the affluent Streeterville neighborhood just north of downtown over the weekend, and on Tuesday evening, a mob attacked two teens at Chicago and Wabash avenues.
Two similar attacks have also been reported on the Near West Side, in which the victims were students at the University of Illinois at Chicago. One of the attacks was on a Chicago Transit Authority bus.
