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A new report has identified a stretch of the Lawndale neighborhood as having more gun violence than any other area this year.
“It is what it is. I don't know why it's like that, but it is,” said security guard William Hill.
A Sun-Times report shows that a 10th district police beat leads the city in gun violence. That includes ten murders through the first half of this year, while police beats nearby have seen a drop in violence.
“You think about a balloon. If you squeeze the balloon on one side, the other side pops up, right? So sometimes crime does that,” said Supt. Eddie Johnson.
Supt. Johnson commented at a Monday press conference where he announced that five thousand guns have been seized by Chicago police this year. The real problem, he said, is suspects like Tevion Walker, who was arrested over the weekend on a third weapons charge while already on parole for another.
“It's this type of emboldenment that exists when we don’t have a real culture of accountability of gun offenders,” Johnson said.
Police are hoping the homicide rate in the 10th district will drop once it's equipped with the same crime fighting technology that has helped reduce crime in other parts of the city.
The tenth district is slated to receive some high tech help this Fall, including the ShotSpotter technology that helps police respond faster to shootings.
Some residents, though, question whether it will make a difference.
“If, in fact, the police actually did policing, which is good police work, manually, you don't need all these techniques,” said west side resident Patrick McKay.
“You could put up a camera on every light pole, but does that mean that the drug dealers and everybody out here is going to respect that? No, they're not going to respect that because they don't care,” said west side resident Pandaneshia Morgan.
Police say their investments in high-tech crime-fighting tools have helped reduce violence by 13 percent citywide this year.