Crack down on gangs
Another weekend. Another mass shooting. Another round of official reassurances that “this wasn’t random.”
But does that really make anyone feel safer?
The latest bloodbath — four killed, 14 injured in a drive-by shooting outside a River North lounge — wasn’t some chaotic outburst by an unstable loner. It was, as police quickly pointed out, a targeted attack tied to an ongoing gang feud between factions from the South Side. The intended victims didn’t even live in River North. They were there for a party celebrating the release of an album by Chicago drill rapper Mello Buckzz, who, according to the Chicago Tribune, claims an affiliation with NLMB, a South Shore–based gang also known as “No Limit Muskegon Boyz.”
The fact that this made front-page news is significant — not just for the carnage involved, but because the Tribune broke a longstanding media taboo: They named the gang. For years, mainstream outlets refused to do so, citing concerns about glorification or stigmatization. That taboo, thankfully, is now crumbling under the weight of grim reality. These gangs are responsible for a staggering share of the city’s gun violence, including many of its most horrific mass shootings.
It’s time to stop tiptoeing around this fact: Chicago’s mass shootings are overwhelmingly gang related. Gangs like NLMB and their rivals aren’t just “part” of the problem. They are the problem. And if city and county leaders are serious about stopping the bloodshed, they need to do more than issue statements. They need to take down these criminal networks — fully, aggressively, and without apology.
A deadly pattern
The Tribune article makes clear what many Chicagoans already know but few politicians are willing to say out loud: These gangs are engaged in a multi-year cycle of retaliation and public slaughter. It’s not just one-off murders or isolated incidents. It’s a pattern. And that pattern fits perfectly within the legal framework of federal racketeering laws, particularly the RICO statute — a powerful tool the federal government has used to dismantle organized crime for decades.
Yet despite occasional prosecutions, the overall strategy has been sporadic and underwhelming.
Yes, the feds have used RICO against some Chicago gangs. The Gangster Disciples were indicted in 2016 under RICO. Members of the O-Block gang were charged in 2021 in connection with the murder of rapper FBG Duck. And as the Tribune noted, a mass shooting in 2021 involving the Pocket Town faction of the Gangster Disciples left one dead and seven injured and eventually led to federal charges — even though no one was initially arrested.
But these are the exceptions. They prove the concept. The question is: Why not do more?
What’s holding us back?
The short answer: Local politics. RICO cases are resource intensive. They require long-term investigations, surveillance, wiretaps, and — crucially — cooperation from local prosecutors and city leaders. And until very recently, that’s been a nonstarter.
Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, who just left office, built her brand on decarceration and leniency. She refused to prosecute entire categories of offenses. She undermined the police. And she had an almost reflexive distrust of anything involving federal law enforcement — especially immigration enforcement. Foxx's office declined to cooperate with ICE on the removal of criminal illegal aliens. Do we really think she was eager to work with the FBI to dismantle entrenched local gangs?
It wasn’t just ideology. It was also political cowardice. As anyone who has worked in city government will quietly admit, there have long been murky ties between the gangs and certain political figures. Aldermen have been romantically involved with gang leaders. Some neighborhood groups and “violence interrupters” receive public funding while maintaining questionable associations. And let’s not forget: In some of the city’s most troubled neighborhoods, the black-market economy is one of the largest employers. The idea that every local official is an honest broker is, frankly, laughable.
A new sheriff in town?
There is, however, a glimmer of hope. With Kim Foxx gone, newly elected State’s Attorney Eileen O'Neill Burke appears to be taking a more serious approach to public safety. The county jail population has risen by more than 600 since she took office. That alone signals a significant reversal from the “empty the jails” crowd.
If there were ever a moment to restart serious federal-local partnerships, it’s now.
Chicago doesn’t need more social media task forces or $1 billion budgets for “community outreach.” What it needs is a strategy to dismantle the gangs — from top to bottom. And that means using RICO and every other legal tool at our disposal.
Breaking the cycle
Let’s look again at what the Tribune reported. NLMB was tied to a quadruple murder in South Shore in 2017. One of its associates was later gunned down in a brazen daylight attack inside a barbershop. Another mass shooting in 2021, involving the Pocket Town faction, left one dead and seven injured. Then there was KTS Dre, another gang-linked rapper, shot dozens of times outside the Cook County Jail minutes after being released.
What does it tell you when these people can be assassinated in front of the jail? It tells you the gangs are not afraid. And why would they be? In most of these cases, no one was ever charged.
This is why residents in neighborhoods like South Shore, Grand Crossing, and Englewood don’t trust the city’s leaders. They don’t feel protected. They are under siege. They live in fear of crossing invisible borders between gang territories. And even if they know who committed a murder, they don’t dare say anything — because they know the city won’t protect them and the gangs will retaliate.
More guns, less leadership
Northwestern sociologist Andrew Papachristos, quoted in the Tribune, noted that Chicago’s current gang landscape is far more fragmented than it was in the heyday of the “supergangs.” That’s true — and it makes them less predictable, but not less dangerous. In fact, the diffusion of leadership has made enforcement harder, even as the firepower has escalated.
Today’s gang members aren’t wielding knives or pistols — they’re spraying crowds with high-capacity firearms. The difference between a fight and a massacre is now measured in bullets per second.
And social media, while not the root cause, acts as an accelerant. Every taunt, every diss track, every Instagram post becomes another trigger to pull a trigger. As Stanford sociologist Forrest Stuart told the Tribune, these shootings aren’t caused by online content — they’re reflected in it. The violence happens first. Then it shows up in the music videos and the TikTok videos. And then the cycle continues.
A smarter strategy for a safer city
Beyond justice, there’s also a practical, citywide benefit to cracking down on gangs: You unlock enormous untapped potential in Chicago’s housing market.
Think about it — why spend hundreds of millions trying to shoehorn “affordable housing” into solid, safe, middle-class neighborhoods like Edison Park or Mount Greenwood, when vast portions of the city already have affordable housing — they’re just unlivable because of crime?
Making high-crime neighborhoods safe again would do more to expand affordable housing options than any zoning reform or tax-credit scheme ever could. South Shore, Roseland, Austin — these were once thriving working-class communities. They still have the bones: Decent housing stock, transit access, parks, schools. But they’ve been hollowed out by decades of disinvestment, much of it driven by violence.
If we want more housing opportunities for working families, why not reclaim the neighborhoods we already have? Why not turn them back into places where law-abiding, hardworking people want to live and raise families? That would do more for equity, affordability, and stability than risking the safety and cohesion of the few neighborhoods that still work.
Because let’s be honest: If you start dropping large-scale affordable housing projects into neighborhoods that are currently stable and safe — without being brutally honest about selection criteria and security measures — you run a real risk of undermining the very fabric that makes those neighborhoods successful. That’s not equity; it’s folly.
Instead of jeopardizing the few healthy parts of the city, why not make the unhealthy parts livable again? Why not treat safe neighborhoods like Edison Park as models to emulate, rather than targets to disrupt?
And the upside isn’t just safety. If you clean up gang activity in these high-crime areas, you don’t just improve quality of life — you raise property values, you restore local business confidence, you fix food deserts, and you end the cycle of disinvestment that has plagued these communities for generations. In short, you begin to turn the city around.
The time is now
It’s time to face a hard truth: The feds are our best hope for cleaning this up. The city is too compromised, too politicized, too cautious. The federal government can act with more objectivity, more independence, and — frankly — more force.
But they need a local partner willing to help gather evidence, share intelligence, and support witnesses. That hasn’t happened in years. Maybe now, under new leadership at the State’s Attorney’s office, it can.
Because Chicago doesn’t need another task force. It needs a RICO task force. And it needs it now.
And let’s be clear: If Israel can break Hamas — a deeply embedded, heavily armed, and politically entrenched terrorist organization — then surely we can break the cancer of gang violence that has been killing our city from the inside out. The only thing lacking is the will to act.
