Ten Years of Chicago Values
On this date in 2013, we launched a questionably named site with the simple idea of illustrating "Chicago values".
First, a little history: back in 2012, there was a spike in homicides that caused some around town to clutch their pearls and head for the fainting couch. That spike ended up pushing the homicide count to just north of 500 for the year. These days, 500 would be cause for celebration but in 2012 it was an anomaly where the average homicide count since the mid-aughts was roughly 450 give or take.
To find more information about these homicides, we didn't find much. While the Chicago Tribune along with their daily freebie rag RedEye did a pretty good job with tracking the newly deceased, the data was usually delayed a day or two and there wasn't a single place online where one could take in all the stupidity in less than 30 seconds.
This is where the 100w incandesant lightbulb started to flicker.
Idiot 1: Let’s make a website that tracks Chicago’s crime.
Idiot 2: Brillant! What should we call it?
Idiot 1: How about “HeyJackass!”?
Idiot 2: WTF? … Hmm … Good enough!
And we’ve been doing this every day ever since.
Chicago Values
Around this time, Rahm was only in the second year of his eight-year run and decided to play to the base by getting involved in the infamous Chick-fil-A controversy by declaring the now-immortalized Chicago values line:
“Chick-fil-A’s values are not Chicago values. And if you’re gonna be part of the Chicago community, you should reflect Chicago values.”
More than ten years later, we still have no idea what Chicago values are or what they are supposed to represent. No matter its representation or meaning, it made for a fantastic tagline. Thanks Rahm!
Stats, Metrics, Numbers and Crap
When we first started, there wasn't a lot of publicly available data. The CPD used and still uses terms like murders (the legal definition of homicide) and shootings (incidents where one or more person is shot) vs homicides and people shot. We felt that the latter was a more accurate way to gauge the level of violence around town.
For example, the CPD does not count officer-involved shootings (fatal or non-fatal), self-defense, accidental or negligent discharges (selfies), or anything on the expressways towards their shooting and murder counts. Shootings were/are incidents with no count of how many people were shot. Therefore a mass shooting of a dozen people is just a shooting vs 12 people shot. Over time, that can become quite the gap between counting methodologies.
In the beginning we only tracked homicides. We didn't start tracking people shot until April of 2013 and didn't get into the groove until that summer. As such our 2013 data is light on the non-fatal lead poisonings, but at least the homicide count matches what the Cook County Medical Examiner had at the time. Our data is solid from January 1, 2014 onward. So keep that in mind when reading through the following cumulative nonsense.
January 1, 2013 - January 25, 2023: 6,467 killed, 27,802 wounded
In the past ten years we’ve tallied:
5,749 shot & killed
340 stabbed
180 beaten
198 killed via other means
259 shot by police, 91 fatally
Averaged 9 people shot per day
Jan 1, 2014 - Today: 22 days without a shooting and/or homicide
Worst Day: May 31, 2020 with 18 homicides and 33 wounded
349 mass shootings (4 or more victims) w/ 230 killed from 2014 onward
5,735 (87%) males killed vs 732 females
5,115 (79%) Blacks, 1,042 Hispanics, 309 other
123 children 12 and younger murdered
Homicide age range: 0-96
Average age of a homicide victim is 30
Team Austin tallied 3,107 shot, 556 fatally
Forest Glen only community area to not record a homicide
11th District tallied 648 homicides from 2014 onward
At least 1,687 #ShotInTheAss
The Future
What does the future hold for HeyJackass!? Aside from a smoke and crater event, most likely more of the same. Trends will ebb and flow but crime will always be down. Shots will be fired, some will hit, most will miss. Different people may occupy the fifth floor at City Hall or seats in the City Council but the march forward won’t change direction all that much. We see a 2033 Chicago not much different than the Chicago of 2023 or 2013 or 2003. We’ll all be ten years older and probably ten pounds heavier, but Chicago will be Chicago for better or worse and we still won’t have the flying cars we were promised in the 80s. Damnit!
10 Years of Chalkie
Chalkie has been around since day one and has been busy ever since. However, we cannot take credit for the moniker. That honor goes to the old comment section of Second City Cop.
In any event, if it wasn't for your support we would have folded nine and half years ago. As a thank you, please take 10% off your order of useless crap with the code 10YEAR.
Social Dumpster Fires
We’re not big fans of social media, but in some cases they seem to be beneficial at destroying peoples’ careers. Check us out on these platforms if you haven’t aleady done so:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/w_h_thompson
Telegram: https://t.me/HeyJackass
Instagram: (at)heyjackasschicago
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heyjackass/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@HeyJackass
Odysee: https://odysee.com/@HeyJackass:2
Gettr: https://gettr.com/user/heyjackass
If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading. Our goal is to push out one long form post a week in addition to our regular stats focused posts. Thanks and remember “We don't want nobody nobody sent”.