Black people are always shooting one another in Chicago, thousands of times a year in their own neighborhoods. The numbers get into the papers and the level of violence is mentioned on the news.

Late last year, the Obama Department of Justice began investigating Chicago Police treatment of criminal class blacks.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced the creation last December 1st of a Chicago Police Accountability Task Force, which predictably issued a blistering report finding that the cats were hostile toward rats and mice and prone to treat them roughly.

So, the Chicago Police, long noted for their toughness, have obviously been obliged to take a step back and avoid provoking complaints from the urban underclass population.

Whoever could have imagined that the next thing we read in the papers would be the shooting death of middle-aged white Chicagoan at what would previously have been considered a location totally safe from street crime in the very heart of downtown Chicago?

Jeffrey Carter, a blogger and upper middle-class resident of downtown Chicago, was naturally shocked and alarmed.

Yesterday, we drove back from Minnesota. As I pulled down Wabash an unmarked police car raced down the street in front of me. A policeman got out, left the door to his car open, and drew his gun. He started running.

We wheeled our way into our garage. There were police cars all over Michigan Avenue. That’s where the shooting was.

Turns out, a person on a bicycle shot a person walking on the sidewalk at Millennium Park. You hear a lot of stories about the violence in Chicago. Most of it is contained in one area of the city, not close to where you and your family would be if they were here.

This looks to be a random act of violence, not a gang crime or terrorism. No law in the world would have stopped it.

My neighborhood has the usual city crime. It has a lot of it-but it’s crimes of opportunity. Shoplifting. Stealing personal items from people. Small time robbery. Never shootings. There are bums on every street corner panhandling and many of them have gotten very belligerent. I saw that they are having similar problems in New York City. I have seen the same people panhandling in the same spots for years and years and years. …

The police force in Chicago is overtaxed. They are under assault from independent groups, and from politicians. Certainly, there are some bad apples and they can be taken care of. But, it feels like it’s a part of a much broader organized top down movement. Many of the arrests in Charlotte, NC were not local people. They were imported from out of state. No doubt, it’s because North Carolina is a state in political play. I noticed there were no protests in Oklahoma.

The shootings that go on in other neighborhoods are part of a broader gang war. If the US would change drug policy, the violence would decrease. Milton Friedman was right about the War on Drugs. There is only so much a city government can do to stop that kind of violence, although very liberal gun laws might help. Changing educational policy to allow for school choice would help. Lowering minimum wage and mandatory union laws so people could have better opportunities to find work would help.

Politicians say they want to do something-but their solutions are always the same. More laws, more regulations, higher taxes. At the same time, the gang leaders help them get out the vote, so there is little incentive to change when politicians are just interested in power and not helping the electorate.

If you lose the lakefront and the Loop, you will lose Chicago. My wife and I have always said, upper middle class and wealthy people will put up with a lot to live in a city. They’ll pay taxes to a point and absorb the increased cost, to a point. It is convenient and all the things that come with city living are great. But, as soon as they don’t feel secure, they are out.

We haven’t reached that tipping point, but that’s the way momentum is going right now.

The shooting victim, Peter Fabbri age 54, died on Sunday. (Chicago Tribune)

Chicago is a one-party city, and its democrat rulers are dependent on votes from minorities. If those pols continue to represent preferentially that particular constituency and to address its grievances, Chicago police will continue to be handcuffed, crime will increase dramatically and violent crime will expand into good neighborhoods. The inevitable consequence will be white flight, the collapse of commerce and real estate values, and the transformation of Chicago into Detroit.