The Illinois State Police ended a small anti-gun protest Monday in Chicago by making a few arrests. At long last, law enforcement applied the rule of law. However, it took state troopers to do what the notoriously corrupt City of Chicago refused to do just a few weeks ago.
The Rev. Gregory Livingston led this latest effort to block an interstate highway to promote gun control. This time, they tried to shut down the Kennedy Expressway between Chicago and O’Hare International Airport.
Unfortunately for Rev. Livingston, this time the media far outnumbered protesters. And they tried to shut down a highway that serves a very different segment (and demographic) of Chicago than Fr. Pfleger and his protestors chose in the Dan Ryan shutdown. This time, the Illinois State Police didn’t negotiate. They made arrests.
The Chicago Tribune had the story:
A small anti-violence demonstration Monday near the Kennedy Expressway ended in a way two previous highway protests during the summer did not: with protesters in handcuffs.
A dozen protesters, including the event’s organizer, the Rev. Gregory Livingston, were arrested before they could block traffic on the busy artery that connects downtown Chicago with O’Hare International Airport.
“This shows that we’re willing to sacrifice our freedom for the freedom of others,” Livingston said, calling his arrest a “source of pride.” He said the nonviolent protest delivered the message that large swaths of the city plagued by violence and poverty are being forgotten. “We want to end the ‘tale of two cities’ in the city of Chicago.”
The arrests by Illinois State Police, the agency with jurisdiction over the Kennedy, represented a departure from how police handled two larger protests earlier this summer. In those protests, marchers blocked traffic lanes on the Dan Ryan Expressway and Lake Shore Drive under the watchful eye of the police, but no one was arrested.
This is the same Livingston who appeared with Tio Hardiman at the last pathetic Interstate-blocking soiree “against violence” about a month ago. They tried to shut down Lakeshore Drive and then disrupt a Cubs game at Wrigley Field. Despite friends with deep pockets, Livingston couldn’t even find two busloads of people to participate.
At that event, the reverend claimed additional buses full of supporters “got caught in traffic” but they never appeared. The motley gaggle then failed to disrupt the Cubs game. Instead, they bloviated outside, to the amusement of Cubs fans watching the circus from inside the stadium. In other words, that gun control protest turned into an epic failure. Not unlike the Labor Day protest.
Hardiman, in the pink shirt above, served as head of the state-funded gun control group Ceasefire, but lost that gig after his wife contacted police with allegations of spousal abuse. A couple of weeks later, she filed for divorce.
And despite two arrests for domestic battery, Tio “#MeToo” Hardiman has run for Illinois governor in the last two primary elections. On his latest campaign website (since removed), he featured “Women’s Rights” as a defining campaign issue, front and center.
That’s a lot of chutzpah for a guy who caught his first arrest for beating his wife in 1999. At the time, his then-wife said he punched her and threw her to the ground, telling her, “When I get finished with you, nobody’s gonna want you!”
No word on whether Hardiman joined Livingston in this latest march for gun control. That didn’t stop Livingston from some pretty over-the-top rhetoric though. “We want to end the ‘tale of two cities’ in the city of Chicago.”
Chicago’s Democrat machine politicians have helped create two cities in the Windy City. To this day, it’s among the most segregated cities in America. Even the left-leaning publication The Atlantic acknowledges that:
Why are large swaths of Chicago’s population unable to get ahead? There are two main reasons. The first and most obvious is the legacy of segregation that has made it difficult for poor black families to gain access to the economic activity in other parts of the city. This segregation has meant that African Americans live near worse educational opportunities and fewer jobs than other people in Chicago. City leaders in Chicago have exacerbated this segregation over the years, according to Diamond, channeling money downtown and away from the poor neighborhoods. “Public policies played a huge role in reinforcing the walls around the ghetto,” he told me.
Meanwhile, Second City Cop, a popular blog run by a Chicago police officer, had some pretty harsh words for the Rev. Livingston:
You want to end the “tale of two cities”? Stop acting like the rules of a civilized society don’t apply to your community and join everyone else:
- the robbery rate is lower,
- burglary rate lower,
- drug dealing rate lower,
- shooting rate lower,
- and yes, murder rate lower – lower by magnitudes
Try it, you might like it.
Indeed.
Given how this latest gun control stunt ended so badly for the instigators, hopefully Chicagoland commuters will no longer need to worry about artificially created traffic jams.
And with Mayor Rahm Emanuel announcing today that he won’t be running for reelection, perhaps Chicago’s residents will learn that the grass grows greener — and with far less violent crime — off of the gun control plantation.
If they got what they were protesting for, the problem they are trying to fix would get worse. Ironic, isn’t it?
More like a catch-22. Because they know what they want will make the problem worse. That’s what they want. How would they gain(personally) if they solved the problems they complain about?
The money isn’t in solving problems, the real profit is in creating problems that you can keep going for decades and decades. Keep your personal gravy train going forever, while droning on and on forever about the problems you’ve created, but making damn sure nothing ever gets done about them(except making them ever worse…).
He has to be a shill for Cook CO Crime; lords to convince the Chicago Obama sheeple to turn em all in, as Feinstein wants for her masters the Chi-Com America take over!
do the “me too” people know about this guy?…..
But but but who would pimp for poverty?!? Don’t tell homie and homietta they could move south-they’ll just bring crime with them. I’m cool with my new lawabiding family oriented job holding MEXICAN neighbor’s(haven’t a clue if they’re legal!).
Before I retired my old neighborhood was a relocation area for a group of ethnic refugees.
The parents were nice, law-abiding and very decent people. Their children, however, almost immediately dove into ‘thug culture’ and turned a once-great neighborhood into a cess pit where people were afraid to walk. Non-ethnic refugee children would be harassed and sometimes attacked by groups of these refugee teens.
“We’re willing to sacrifice our freedom for the freedom of others.”
What?! You’re fighting for gun abolishment, not the releasing of political prisoners, actual prisoners, or slaves that don’t exist.
Damn these people are dumb.
Rev. Gregory Livingston is a Attention Whore just like Father Michael Pfleger. I personally think they could care little about their “cause” as much as they do about getting their faces on TV and in the papers.
Basically to stop rampant violence and law breaking they do EXACTLY the same thing. “We will block a expressway or march down Lake Shore Drive.” The problem with Livingston is he isn’t on good terms with “Tiny Dancer” Rahm Emanuel. The governor has had enough. He told the ISP to arrest anybody blocking a EXPRESSWAY and they did. This BS is not a peaceful protest or lawful assembly.
In an ironic twist two hours later the rain came in and flooded the expressway a little further west. No traffic able to get in or out of O’Hare. Rahm Emanuel has announced he wont be running for mayor again, its a no win situation for him.
What will the attention whores do now? The violence will remain the same and next year we will have another attention whore as governor. That is the big fat I bought a election in a bankrupt state – JB Pritzker. He’s going to make Illinois great again without raising taxes. How he’s going to do that when there is NO money right now has many perplexed.
Attention Whores, they don’t even think about what they are getting into before leaping.
You can tell that the “Rev” is an attention whore by looking at the photo at the top of the article. Even though he was being arrested, he made sure to maintain eye contact with the camera!
Too bad Hardiman’s wife didn’t have a gun at the time.
Makes sense for someone who victimizes smaller people (presumably) to push gun control, though. Makes it less likely he’ll get shot during a crime.
They need a lesson in physics on the highway.
You mean the physics of what happens when an 80,000 lb semi rolls over a squishy bag of mostly water?
Well spoken Kenneth
You forgot a lot of hot air.
If they don’t know by now, they will never learn…
https://youtu.be/JyEPqMH_Eaw
There are tons of these on youtube. All of them equally hilarious.
I wonder which moron will succeed Tiny Dancer as King of Chicago.
the only constant is that it can always get worse, especially when you think it can’t
@ Ralph: A much worse POS. The Democrats of Chicago will demand it.
Spoke to a relative that drove to the airport. They used I-90. No disruptions, no problem.
That’s because the ISP and Park Ridge PD weren’t having it. “Rev” Gregory Livingston was calling for Tiny Dancers resignation so he didn’t get involved. The “protesters” never got more then 20 feet onto the on ramp.
Police told the protesters to turn around, and Livingston replied, “We understand. No.” Protesters then chanted, “Ain’t nobody going to turn us around.” Then the ISP got the bracelets out and arrested 12 of the 50 “protesters”. The other 35 or so turned around rather quickly. End of protest. Livingston called the protest “a phenomenal success”.
Phenomenal Success – Like watching a monkey f***ing a football.
funny that you linked scc, his blog is where i first saw ttag linked, but after many less than positive leo articles and the repeated phrase “cops are civilians” ttag is no longer linked there.
his is the most comprehensive list i’ve seen:
Ald-moron and Rahm-lickspittle Roderick Sawyer, (6th)
known communist Ameya Pawar (47th)
latin king Ricardo Muñoz (22nd)
Gery Chico
U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill
former Obama education secretary Arne Duncan
Toni Preckwinkle,
Lisa Madigan
Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd)
even Ald-asshole Proco Joe, Chewy Garcia and psycho Little Luis (D-FALN) are making noise
This in addition to the already declared:
Lightfoot
Vallas
carpetbagger McCarthy
soon-to-be-indicted Brown
LaRaviere
Willie “$$$$” Wilson
activist Ja’Mal Green
tech entrepreneur Neal Sales-Griffin (who?)
attorney John Kozlar, pharmaceutical technician (who?)
DePaul student Matthew Roney (who?)
policy consultant Amara Enyia (who?)
Southwest Side attorney Jerry Joyce (why?)
Seems as if there is a simple, plain English phrase that serves unfortunately well to describe the Chicago PD. They are a bad joke.
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