(Photo: Three Freedom of Information Act requests, seconds from the mailbox.)
Wow. Yesterday’s Chicagosphere post on alleged gang violence during Chicago’s Independence Eve fireworks turned out to be today’s top story on ChicagoNow. That post compared official reports of a relatively “peaceful” July 3rd fireworks display with reports from the blog, Second City Cop, and several Twitter members indicating a sizable gang presence, multiple gang-related fights, numerous guns recovered, and a potential shooting or serious injury at or around 8:30 p.m. in the vicinity of Buckingham Fountain.
Today, I’d like to take the liberty of again referring my regular readers to Chicagosphere, where I’ve posted an update on yesterday’s allegations of July 3rd violence–and the things I’m doing to get to the bottom of them. That includes using tools from both the traditional and online methods of news-gathering.
Yesterday, I reached out to my blogging and online media colleagues and social-media friends on Twitter and Facebook to seek additional information. That resulted in coverage from almost every major community news site in Chicago, including Gapers Block, Windy Citizen, Chicago Carless, the Beachwood Reporter, Chicagoist, Huffington Post Chicago, Second City Cop, and the WBEZ Chicago Public Radio blog, and lots of eyewitness tips about incidents of violence, including several posts from Megan McDonald, Executive Director of the Mayor’s Office of Special Events, in yesterday’s Chicagosphere comment thread.
Today, as I continue to ask my readers and social-media friends to keep the eyewitness accounts coming, I did what any self-respecting traditional news-gatherer would do. I filed FOIAs. Find out about them–and what you can do to help–on today’s Chicagosphere.
Read on Chicagosphere: Following Up on Chicago’s Independence Eve Violence
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Mike is a blogger and public relations consultant who scribes about his Chicago life with brutal honesty. An ex-New Yorker and trained urban planner, he's gratefully called the Windy City home since 2003. Like Studs Terkel before him, Mike intends to go to his grave without learning how to drive a car. He's been pursuing that goal for 39 years. And counting.
5 responses so far ↓
1 Is Chicago Covering Up a Gang Shooting at the July 3rd Fireworks? // Jul 8, 2009 at 11:02 am
[...] Independence Eve Violence Update [...]
2 Mike Doyle // Jul 8, 2009 at 12:18 pm
See this Gapers Block Mechanics column post (GB’s political column) for a look at what might happen negatively due to the Taste of Chicago violence issue raised by me on Chicagosphere and by the Second City Cop blog. Author Jacob Lesniewski (whom I’ve worked with before and a fine political thinker) wonders whether the City of Chicago will use the continued controversy over security at the Taste to begin racially profiling attendees in some way as a method of identifying gang members.
Hopefully not. Though judging by video of last week’s event I’ve seen on YouTube (here’s a clip sent to me by a reader), it looks more like this year the gang members announced themselves in no uncertain terms. Readers can judge for themselves.
3 Blogging Crime Versus “Disappearing” It: Chicago and Atlanta @ Crime Victims Media Report // Jul 9, 2009 at 11:53 am
[...] the headline, a low bar to set. But is it true? Here is Mike Doyle, reporting from the blog Chicago Carless: To compare the stories, I jotted down a thumbnail list of each version of events–the [...]
4 Dora // Jul 12, 2009 at 5:06 pm
I saw you at the grand ave. Jewel in the self checkout with your two boxes of eggos.
Leggo my eggo
5 Mike Doyle // Jul 12, 2009 at 7:13 pm
Was that the day of the meltdown? I was just in that line over the holiday weekend and the register system failed for every single person. It was awful.
But very Jewel!
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