NEW YORK – Police say that twelve people were arrested Friday night after two fights broke out at a big meeting of teens in downtown Chicago.
The city says that about 300 teens got together and stayed for four hours.
There were arrests after the “teen takeover.”
What we know
On Saturday, Chicago police revealed that they had arrested two adults and ten teens. They haven’t said anything about their claims.
Two violent events were reported in the downtown area on Friday night, which led to the arrests.
One teen was shot, and another was stabbed.
Police say an 18-year-old man was stabbed inside a store in the Loop around 8:45 p.m. in the 100 block of North State Street after getting into a fight with a group.
Authorities say that during the fight, someone pulled out a knife and stabbed the victim in the back before running away.
The victim was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital and is doing pretty well there.
A little over an hour later, cops say a 15-year-old boy was shot in Streeterville and got a small cut on his leg.
Around 9:40 p.m., it took place in the 400 block of North Cityfront Plaza Drive. The teen was on the ground when police saw a big group leaving the area.
He was taken in good health to Lurie Children’s Hospital.
What they’ve said
The following is a message from Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson about the gathering of teens:
“No one wants to see the careless and dangerous behaviour that happened last night, and our city will not stand for it.” The cops are looking into what happened right now, and everyone who caused the trouble will be held responsible.
“Gun violence is still a big problem in our city.” These guns aren’t from Chicago. In Chicago alone, 12,000 guns were taken off the streets last year. But we need to do more to stop the constant flow of guns into our city.
“As for the neighbourhood curfew, I don’t agree with the idea because it would just force these kids to move to the next neighbourhood over.” Moving the problem to the next town over is not a good idea. We need to implement the citywide curfew law that is already in place before we think about taking any other steps.
“We also need to make sure that our teens and young adults have more safe places to go this spring and summer.” We need the City Department, the business community, the church community, the philanthropic community, and the civic community to keep working with us to give our young people even more places to go and things to do this year.
Chicago teens can meet in any neighbourhood they choose, but “they’re not allowed to break windows, steal from stores, jump on cars, block traffic, scare pedestrians, or shoot guns into crowds,” said Ward 2 Ald. Brian Hopkins.
On Saturday, Navy Pier hosted a party for teens. Over 1,500 teens came to play video games, skateboard and check out a huge job fair.
According to Hopkins, the event was “successful, giving them alternatives, support, and instruction.”
What’s next?
Police are still looking into both events, and they think that the rain on Saturday night kept a lot of people from coming back.
Some people, like Ald. Hopkins, want to change the curfew from 10 p.m. to 8 p.m. But Mayor Johnson doesn’t agree. He says it would “uproot young people, moving the problem to the next community over.”
