Two months ago state reps John Fritchey and LaShawn Ford called on Mayor Daley and Governor Quinn to consider using the national guard to battle violence in Chicago. The mayor dismissed the idea as a quick fix and tried to redirect the conversation, saying the legislators should be focused on helping him get tougher gun laws passed in Springfield—even though Chicago already has the toughest gun restrictions in the country.
“This is all about guns,” Daley said at the time.
But on Wednesday afternoon the legislators were back before the cameras, and this time they went even further than they had in April, calling for another discussion of the national guard proposal, insisting that Daley isn’t doing enough about recurring violence, and asking city and state officials to consider decriminalizing marijuana.
“At some point there is going to have to be some recognition that what we’ve been doing isn’t working,” Fritchey said.
This time around the mayor simply refused to say anything.