By ANDY GRIMM
Chicago Sun-Times
Cook COUnty Commissioner Richard Boykin | Sun-Times file photo
While crime does not respect municipal boundaries, police agencies in Cook County have no uniform way to compare crime data or trace weapons used in crime, according to a report from a county task force on gun violence.
The wide-ranging report, released Wednesday after 10 months of research and public hearings, offers a variety of policy suggestions and suggested tactics to reduce violence in the county, from endorsing “hot spot” patrols to increased funding for employment to anti-violence programs — but it was not clear how many of the recommendations would take hold.
“We have a blueprint. We have to implement it,” Cook County Commissioner Richard Boykin said after the board of commissioners formally entered the report into the record. The meeting had begun with a resolution honoring Javon Wilson, grandson of U.S. Rep. Danny Davis. Wilson, a 17-year-old honor student, was gunned down in November at his home in Englewood, one of more than 740 homicides in Chicago so far this year.
The report endorses “hot spot” police measures — sending officers to areas with surging crime — and called for more community-oriented policing, familiar themes of contemporary crime-fighting.
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