McCarthy Commits Undercovers to Downtown Attacks

No sooner had Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy been confirmed by the Chicago City Council, then he addressed the media about a crime wave affecting downtown Chicago.

He said the wild teens that have been running rampant through the Streeterville and Gold Coast neighborhoods are more complex than originally reported.

"There's a number of different categories that we're talking about," McCarthy said.  "We're talking about shoplifting, we're talking about robbery incidents ... but they're getting lumped in to one category."

He asked for the media's help in separating each of these downtown crimes into their own category.

For his part, McCarthy said the department made more than 29 arrests since last weekend. More can be expected, as the department is using increased police presence, undercover agents and a strategy to cover different "choke points" coming into the city.

"The undercover agents -- who hopefully you don't notice will be our eyes and ears when big groups are streaming into the city," he said.

Meanwhile, another attack occured just hours after the press conference.

Rahm Emanuel has deferred to McCarthy on matter of the teen attacks.

Just before the press conference, which featured Emanuel, McCarthy and Deputy Al Wysinger, a number of alderman said the problem is nothing new, just its location.

Alderman Robert Fioretti said the attacks have been going on for years in his Ward, and that it's time to do something about it.

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