Order to close Ohio St. underpass to reduce crime touches racial nerve

The Chicago Park District was ordered Monday to close the Ohio Street underpass between midnight and 5 a.m. from April through October in a controversial move that, once again, exposed the city’s racial divide.

Downtown Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd) rushed the “order” through the City Council’s Finance Committee — with an assist from Chairman Edward M. Burke (14th) — in response to the Father’s Day murder of 25-year-old Raven Lemons near the underpass used to access the beach and the lakefront trail

The move outraged Transportation Committee Chairman Anthony Beale (9th), who viewed it as yet another example of the “double-standard” that has long applied to crimes in white and minority communities.

“If we start closing streets every time somebody gets killed, we would have over 600 blocks in the black and brown communities shut down,” Beale said.

“This is over-reaching, over-reacting. We deal with these types of things every single day in our communities. But when it happens downtown, [people say], ‘Let’s shut it down.’”

Beale said a downtown area that has experienced a recent increase in violent crime already has more police officers “than anybody in the doggone city and we want more.”

“And now, we’re gonna sit here and put an order in because … one person got killed downtown? I’m sorry. But where’s the sympathy for my community? Where’s the reaction when people of color are killed?” Beale said.

Reilly countered, “I’m certainly not here to trivialize the deaths of any individual who is shot in the city of Chicago, regardless of what color they are, what neighborhood they live in or where it happened.”

But he argued that the Chicago Police Department’s 18th District simply does not have the manpower to cover “multiple nightclub districts” and still “stand sentry” at multiple underpasses.

“I’m not suggesting that they allocate cops from high-crime areas to prioritize my ward. … I’m trying to give the police additional tools to address the scarce resources we have Downtown better,” he said.

Reilly emphatically denied that the underpass closing was a “knee-jerk” reaction to one violent crime in Streeterville.

He argued that the Ohio Street underpass has been a “going concern” for many years, in part, because it is “effectively a dead-end.”

“It’s poorly lit and it’s a major access point to and from the lakefront illegally after hours,” he said.

Burke called the overnight closing “simply a matter of common sense.”

“It’s helpful to the police so that it’s one less trigger point that they have to worry about,” the chairman said.

The order was introduced directly to the Finance Committee to make certain it passes the full council before the August recess, Burke said.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel was none too excited about the underpass closing, telling reporters last week he was determined to “make sure every part of the city has access” to the lakefront.

On Monday, Reilly made no apologies for ignoring the mayor’s ambivalence and noted it’s not the first time he has forged ahead on infrastructure decisions without consulting Emanuel.

After Monday’s divisive debate, Emanuel’s communications director Adam Collins issued an emailed statement that, again, steered clear of taking a stand on the matter.

Noting that public safety is “everyone’s top priority,” Collins wrote, “Police, CDOT and the Park District were already working with the alderman on his concerns – and a host of other public safety investments – well before today.”