The senseless murder of a Chicago 911 calltaker in Back of the Yards on Friday has a Chicago alderman blasting Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration for failing to help make improvements in the neighborhood and “gangbanging parents” for passing a love of violence on to a new generation.
Natalia Rodriguez, 50, was shot and killed while driving in the 4500 block of South Wood Street shortly after midnight Friday. Ald. Ray Lopez (15th) said she was in the area visiting family, and he suggested that she was randomly targeted in a “gang check.”
Cook County Crime Stoppers and the ATF have teamed up to create a $30,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and indictment of the people responsible for her death.
“Her loss is great because it takes away the thoughts of what could have been and also leaves a stain on a community living in fear of gang and gun violence,” Lopez said in a lengthy post on X. “Sadly, this gang mindset and culture is generational, where gangbanging parents instill this lifestyle in their children, continuing the cycle.”
“Residents know who they are because they live in fear daily, going to work early in the morning and coming home late at night,” the alderman continued. “This evil entity threatens our seniors, terrorizes our families, and gives our impressionable youth a false sense of what to look up to.”
But Lopez said things can be done to make life better for the quiet majority, the overwhelming number of good people in the neighborhood.
“The city can do its part to make it harder for thugs to stand on street corners, flashing their little hand signs, and stopping cars they don’t know. Since Spring 2024, I have asked the Bureau of Forestry to remove trees around gang hangout hotspots to prevent them from hiding or using the branches to cut streetlights. Sadly, they’ve done nothing,” the alderman stated.
According to Lopez, the city has estimates for installing “piggyback streetlights” that make it harder for ne’er-do-wells to cut wires and darken streets. He claims Johnson’s administration has done “absolutely nothing to push this forward.”
Lopez also slammed the millions of dollars that the city spends on anti-violence groups that “are more interested in championing causes halfway around the globe than in our own neighborhoods.”
“The taxpayer money they receive that is meant to go into communities like Back of the Yards, Brighton Park, and Gage Park seldom addresses the generational gang violence,” Lopez claimed. “Sadly, these non-profit grief peddlers do more to show up after a tragic event like this one to soapbox their need for ‘more funding,’ yet have done absolutely nothing to advocate for accountability for the gangbangers they harbor.”
“Chicago needs to wake up to these poverty and fear pimps that intentionally want our communities, communities like Back of the Yards, to remain in fear so that they can continue to profit from it,” the alderman urged.
“Stop protecting gangbangers. End the cycle of generational gang culture. Stop funding ‘anti-violence’ groups that do not advocate for accountability but harbor this lifestyle, and demand that City Hall invest in real, concrete solutions that can bring lasting change to communities living in fear of gang terror,” Lopez demanded.
“These ideas are not radical. They’re rooted in common sense, and we need to start electing a City Hall that shares them.”
