Over the weekend, Chicago was the site of further unrest as mobs of teenagers terrorized some of the city’s busiest streets, sending both residents and tourists fleeing amid gunfire that left two teens shot, 14 people arrested, city transportation disrupted, and cars smashed.
None of this interested the broadcast networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC or lefty cable network CNN on their flagship Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Monday mornings shows. In contrast, all four networks wallowed Monday morning in the fact that Netflix’s Love Is Blind live reunion failed to air Sunday night due to technical difficulties. The horror!
NewsNation was on the case Sunday with seven minutes and 29 seconds over two segments and three news briefs despite having only three hours of programming a day on weekends. Add in a full segment on Monday’s Early Edition, and NewsNation had 10 minutes and five seconds.
The Fox News Channel took until Monday to arrive and spent 11 minutes and 28 seconds from 5:00 a.m. to noon Eastern. MSNBC’s Morning Joe only made a veiled reference spanning 38 seconds courtesy of New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D).
The unrest was the first tease on Sunday’s NewsNation Prime from host Natasha Zouves:
Takeover in Chicago as hundreds of teams take to the streets jumping on cars and smashing windows. Teen seen punching and kicking a person on the ground. NewsNation's own crew was there hearing gunfire ring out as people fled to the scene, we'll show you the video.
Zouves opened the show with more on the “scenes of chaos” from “[w]hat’s being called a teen takeover” with “hundreds of teens taking to the streets” and some “jumping on cars, smashing windows, damaging property, and climbing up buildings.”
“Tourists running from the sound of gunfire. Officers struggling to get this under control. Two teens shot in all of this, but they are expected to survive,” she added. Tossing later to a full report from NewsNation affiliate WGN correspondent Courtney Spinelli.
Spinelli showed footage of the lawlessness that took place with the hoodlums “crowding the area of the loop from Michigan Avenue to Clark Street and [teens] could be seen jumping on parked cars and smashing windows. Two times, groups of teens were also seen punching, kicking, and stomping on someone on the ground.”
She also included soundbites from community activists denouncing the violence as “nuts” and demanding the city government give “the Chicago Police Department the funding and the resources...to take care of this crime in our communities.”
She added that the chaos “was enough to disrupt traffic and CTA service” and despite policing “flood[ing] the scene, attempting to control the crowds,” gunfire still erupted with two teens hit.
She spoke with one woman who said she “used my running capability” to reach her hotel and escape harm.
Unfortunately, NewsNation omitted the statement from Mayor-Elect Brandon Johnson, who defended the teenagers as having “been starved of opportunities in their own communities.”
Over on Fox, Johnson’s lack of concern for his city and how it’s perceived was front and center.
The Faulkner Focus had a three-minute-and-31-second story from host Harris Faulkner and correspondent Garrett Tenney. Faulkner tore into Johnson’s statement: “So if you’re poor, that's what you do? He’s so wrong about that. There’s so many Americans who struggle every day and they don't do that.”
Tenney explained the mass gatherings weren’t contained to Saturday night as it happened for “three nights in a row” even though “[t]he worst of it was Saturday night, right along Chicago's famed Magnificent Mile and near Millennium Park” as “hundreds of teens were roaming the street late at night terrorizing the city.”
He continued (click “expand”):
You can see this group blocking off a city bus and then climbing on top, jumping up and down. The Tesla you see was smashed, broken into, and set on fire. Another couple driving down the street was attacked. One woman said people jumped on their windshield, smashed it, and beat her husband while he was in the driver's seat.
(....)
Police tell us they arrested 15 people — nine adults and six teens — charging most of them with reckless conduct. Amidst the chaos, police had to escort tourists and others away from the crow and back to their hotels and cars for safety. When one woman made it back to her hotel, she asked a local reporter what a lot of folks are wondering: where are these kids' parents? A lot of folks will remember this isn't the first time this kind of thing has happened. These kinds of scenes have become a regular occurrence the past few years anytime time the weather gets warmer and with seemingly nothing being done to stop it, there’s no reason to think that things are going to be different as we move into this summer[.]
To see the relevant transcripts, click here (for NewsNation Prime) and here (for FNC’s The Faulkner Focus).
