Chicago has been a city known for its food, monuments, and its famous downtown area. Unfortunately, the city is always known for its vicious violence and criminal-stricken areas. For some who call Chicago home, it is just a melting pot of trouble brewing hottest on its West and South side. Chicago Residents Rich Capone and Raymond Williams gave insightful interviews detailing life in the Windy City’s most intense places
Williams, 29, believes that Chicago has gotten worse over the years with its drug culture and gun violence. “Back in the 2000s it was rarely violence with guns, we would rather use our hands like man to man to solve the issue,” Williams said. For him the city had a sense of morality with things, quoting his father before him coining the term, “the better the heart the better the man”.
Witnessing vicious displays of violence and ruthless aggression, Williams chooses a life of peace to rise above what’s around him, planning on moving out as early as 2023. The 29-year-old does not want his children to grow up in a “warzone” as he calls it and does not believe Chicago is the place to stay for a secure and prosperous future for his two children.
Another Perspective
Twenty-three-year-old Capone has differing ideals from the former, believing that there is a chance of changing the community by choosing to stay. Capone stands by the mindset of the fight rather than flight, although he does not have children he plans to raise them in Chicago so that they know their home. Capone says to “mind your business” and “keep your eyes open” survival in the windy city becomes a lot easier. Losing several friends growing up, surviving has become second nature for the native, labeling it as a “necessity”.
Insightful information from two different individuals born in raised in the same city, both share experiences that are personal and traumatic, reshaping perspectives they once had on life. Whether it be happenstance or deliberate intention, violence never ends well for any party involved, oftentimes resulting in injuries or worse, death.
Violence will always be present and ever-growing. In Chicago, violence by the numbers continues to grow at an alarming rate, reaching an apex in 2017 with homicides climbing from 3,550 to 4,331, according to Time magazine. Murders had already increased by 58 percent in 2016 compared to 2015 and began to gradually climb from there. At a point in time, it would not be surprising for the city to have surpassed literal warzones in deaths. Between the years 2001-2016, Chicago recorded more murders than Afghanistan in a 15-year time span with 7,916 murders compared to Iraq and Afghanistan with 4,504 combined, according to Forbes.
In 2022, Chicago recorded 310 homicides by July 1. The number is lower than years prior but still tragic as countless families are torn apart by senseless violence.
Written by Mikal Eggleston
Edited by Sheena Robertson
Sources:
Interview: Raymond Williams 09/05/2022 In-person interview
Interview: Rich Capone 09/04/2022 in-person interview
Time: See Chicago’s Deadly Year in 3 Charts; by Josh Sanburn and David Johnson
Forbes: Homicides In Chicago Eclipse U.S. Death Toll In Afghanistan And Iraq; by Niall McCarthy
Featured Image Courtesy of sj carey‘s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
Inset Image Courtesy of Michael Lucas‘s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
