Another UChicago student murdered. 20-yo undergraduate dies after being shot on subway.

[Anonymous]

Sounds SO far from an idyllic place to grow into adulthood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP here. UChicago is kid's first choice for 2022

QUESTION for **those of you who know the area***** (there are a number of you who've posted so far)

If you bring a car to UC, and you want to drive it from Hyde Park to, say, your internship downtown, or a restaurant etc ...

are you at real risk for being carjacked in the neighborhood? or held up at gunpoint as you walk to car from your off campus apartment? will your car be stolen from private apartment garage?

For context, kid lives in District of Columbia and has excellent street sense _for his age_. Knows a lot of street tricks to increase personal safety. But of course, nobody can overcome crossfire stray bullets and the like

Of course not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The subway line to UC has never been all that safe.
I went to Chicago in the mid-1980s and even then it was sketchy--not totally out of the question, but not great.

For those not familiar with Chicago:
The South Side is generally the poorer side, though there are some lovely neighborhoods too. Hyde Park is bordered on the east by Lake Michigan and on the west by Cottage Grove Ave. Then there's a park, and then the subway line is a few blocks more west. So the subway line is "close" to Hyde Park, but people who live in dense urban areas know that a mile can be a big difference.

Hyde Park itself has long been safe-ish...

There are two trains: the Metra and the CTA (the El). The Metra stops on campus and is safe. The El stop is Garfield, and you have to take a bus to get there. It's an El stop in a bad neighborhood. It's not very safe, unless you are using it during daylight commuting hours, and then it's safe-ish.

I graduated from grad school in 2012 and never took the El, even though it was blocks from my building on campus. Metra was fine. I would be nervous about an 18 year old that may not exercise the best judgement consistently, but with Uber and Lyft I think there are more options than there used to be. I always drove and never felt unsafe in my car. It’s only a few blocks to the highway, then you’re out of the south side.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP here. UChicago is kid's first choice for 2022

QUESTION for **those of you who know the area***** (there are a number of you who've posted so far)

If you bring a car to UC, and you want to drive it from Hyde Park to, say, your internship downtown, or a restaurant etc ...

are you at real risk for being carjacked in the neighborhood? or held up at gunpoint as you walk to car from your off campus apartment? will your car be stolen from private apartment garage?

For context, kid lives in District of Columbia and has excellent street sense _for his age_. Knows a lot of street tricks to increase personal safety. But of course, nobody can overcome crossfire stray bullets and the like

Of course not.

+1.

[Anonymous]

I would think a car would be more trouble than it's worth, but if you have access to/are willing to pay for off-street parking in a secure (good cameras, lighting, security) garage, I wouldn't worry too much.

It is actually pretty easy to get downtown by bus--there's an express that runs regularly right down Lake Shore Dr. PP is right that Metra doesn't run all that often and the El is in a dangerous area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Terribly sad. What in the heck is going on in Chicago, the south side specifically? The city's mayor is a UChicago alumnus too, does she not know that side of town is war zone?

University of Chicago student dies days after being shot on CTA Green Line train in Washington Park

Max Solomon Lewis, 20, was picked up by paramedics at a Green Line station in the 300 block of East 51st Street around 6 p.m., police and the University of Chicago said.

https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2021/7/4/22563568/max-solomon-lewis-univeristy-chicago-train-cta-shot-gun-violence

What’s going on is in part that Chicago is flooded with guns from Republican-run Indiana.

Remember when Obama talked about stronger gun laws?

This is why. It’s not the only problem. But it’s a big part.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would think a car would be more trouble than it's worth, but if you have access to/are willing to pay for off-street parking in a secure (good cameras, lighting, security) garage, I wouldn't worry too much.

It is actually pretty easy to get downtown by bus--there's an express that runs regularly right down Lake Shore Dr. PP is right that Metra doesn't run all that often and the El is in a dangerous area.

I'm the poster you're responding to, and I appreciate your response but I also know* that the part about 'secure' garages is actually not relevant.

To the PPs who quickly answered that carjackings "of course" are not a problem in the South Side ... can you elaborate? carjackings are up nationwide and exponentially in the District. did this trend miss Chicago?


*I work in a big hospital in a bad neighborhood and my private $ parking is well-lit, with cameras mounted, and a bunch of male security guys wearing yellow vests and driving around the lot when they feel like it. There's still a lot of crime, especially in the stairwells and especially at 3 am when you get called into work. No one watches the cameras. The guy in the "Security" SUV is often looking at his phone, or asleep.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is going to be a first-year next year. We received emails on this. fyi the student was not targeted, it was a stray bullet. Independently, both my kid and I looked on google maps and it's ugh, so close to campus.

My kid is now a bit freaked. The other murder was off campus in an apartment building that is often rented by UChicago graduate students, so it was a little easier for my kid to psychologically distance.

We are in Southern California and don't know Chicago well at all. I'm going to mention to my kid that the reason she's now aware of this stuff is because she's admitted. I've watched bad stuff go on around USC but she doesn't know about it because they don't send an email to her as she's not a student there.

PP thanks for the info on the Metra vs. the El.

Broad daylight muggings on and around campus are not uncommon. When a perp mugs you, it's not like this is a huge scene, it happens quickly and quietly. Even if they don't harm you, they have your phone(s), so nobody is calling 911 right away. You'd have to run to an emergency phone. Perps know campus and city police, even if they happen to be nearby, can't engage in high speed pursuits. Many crime incidents are technically off campus and/or not in Hyde Park, so they are more easily brushed under the rug. Campus is a boring bubble about 10 miles south of downtown, so for kids to get anywhere exciting, they have to travel. When you leave the campus bubble, you leave that private police force's orbit. Every time you leave that bubble, especially if you take public transportation, you're putting yourself in harm's way. Ironically, the College gives kids U-Passes, encouraging them to put themselves in harm's way on public transportation.

Chicago resident and my husband teaches at U of C and basically none of this this is true, FWIW.

Violent crime *is* up in the city though. The off campus victim earlier this year was one of several people killed in a cross-city mass shooting spree; it wasn’t really typical Chicago crime. The more recent was a stray bullet, which is more common.

“Basically”? What precisely is not true? It’s all true and you know it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Terribly sad. What in the heck is going on in Chicago, the south side specifically? The city's mayor is a UChicago alumnus too, does she not know that side of town is war zone?

University of Chicago student dies days after being shot on CTA Green Line train in Washington Park

Max Solomon Lewis, 20, was picked up by paramedics at a Green Line station in the 300 block of East 51st Street around 6 p.m., police and the University of Chicago said.

https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2021/7/4/22563568/max-solomon-lewis-univeristy-chicago-train-cta-shot-gun-violence

What’s going on is in part that Chicago is flooded with guns from Republican-run Indiana.

Remember when Obama talked about stronger gun laws?

This is why. It’s not the only problem. But it’s a big part.

So the mayors, prosecutors and judges, and 50 city aldermen have no accountability? Chicago, Cook County, and the state of Illinois assembly have been a well oiled Democrat Machine for 75 plus years.

The current mayor is a moron. And Rahm before her wasn’t much better.

[Anonymous]

The black market guns find their way to Chicago because the whole joint has been a criminal enterprise for decades.

Oh, and get ready for matters onto worsen with the new criminal justice reform bill that just passed in IL last week.

[Anonymous]

Has there ever been an exodus of academics from UChicago to Northwestern due to the crime? I know there's a lot of cross-exchange between, for example, Harvard and MIT faculty, and I can imagine some of the crime might be an impetus to move north.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When my friends went to UChicago, they had a campus security service that would follow you in a car if you had to walk home after dark. I remember she was vaguely irritated because they wouldn't give you a ride -- just follow you, which meant you had to sometimes go out of your way to walk the right way on one-way streets, not cut through buildings, etc. Does anyone know if they still have this or something similar?

My school, is a ridiculously safe small town, actually had a campus security system that would just pick you up and drive you wherever on campus after dark. It was one of the work study jobs and it was a wildly popular service if it was cold out or if you were too drunk to safely make it across campus.

The fact that UChicago campus security does not drive students any more was addressed when I visited UChicago and took the tour. Apparently, the practice of security driving students was stopped because students were using security like Uber or Lyft to get around at night and avoid the cold.

[Anonymous]

“Chicago saw an incredibly violent holiday weekend as July Fourth saw around 88 people shot, including over a dozen killed in crimes across the city. 

Police reported dozens of incidents from Friday through Sunday, with victims ranging in age from 12 to 30. Chicago Alderman Anthony Napolitano called the city a "war zone" and slammed local leaders for the increase in crime.”

This is headline news from today (July 5).

88 people shot in one weekend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would think a car would be more trouble than it's worth, but if you have access to/are willing to pay for off-street parking in a secure (good cameras, lighting, security) garage, I wouldn't worry too much.

It is actually pretty easy to get downtown by bus--there's an express that runs regularly right down Lake Shore Dr. PP is right that Metra doesn't run all that often and the El is in a dangerous area.

I'm the poster you're responding to, and I appreciate your response but I also know* that the part about 'secure' garages is actually not relevant.

To the PPs who quickly answered that carjackings "of course" are not a problem in the South Side ... can you elaborate? carjackings are up nationwide and exponentially in the District. did this trend miss Chicago?


*I work in a big hospital in a bad neighborhood and my private $ parking is well-lit, with cameras mounted, and a bunch of male security guys wearing yellow vests and driving around the lot when they feel like it. There's still a lot of crime, especially in the stairwells and especially at 3 am when you get called into work. No one watches the cameras. The guy in the "Security" SUV is often looking at his phone, or asleep.

NP. I live in the Chicago suburbs and I can’t speak to Hyde Park specifically, but carjackings in the city have absolutely increased during the pandemic. Even in areas that you would normally consider safe (e.g., near the Mag Mile) and in broad daylight, there have been more carjackings. AFAIK, they are just thefts though and not physical attacks on people. I expect things to improve as the workers come back to the city, but there has definitely been more crime.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:“Chicago saw an incredibly violent holiday weekend as July Fourth saw around 88 people shot, including over a dozen killed in crimes across the city. 

Police reported dozens of incidents from Friday through Sunday, with victims ranging in age from 12 to 30. Chicago Alderman Anthony Napolitano called the city a "war zone" and slammed local leaders for the increase in crime.”

This is headline news from today (July 5).

88 people shot in one weekend.

It was even worse.

"On Monday the Chicago Sun-Times has tallied 92 people shot over the long July 4th weekend, with 16 killed. The Sun-Times database shows the numbers killed to be a weekend high for all of 2021 so far."