Savage CTA Attack on New Year's Eve

Rogers Park, Chicago - After the recent New Year's Eve celebration, a Rogers Park bar owner and bar staff were viciously attacked as they tried to board the Red Line train around 3:30 a.m., January 1, 2009. The owner and staff tried to enter the Morse Avenue CTA EL Station (at N. Glenwood), where about 12 juveniles (estimated at 15-17 years old, both boys and girls) were loitering inside the terminal and blocking the turnstyles. (It should be noted that the CTA employees at the Morse station frequently allow loitering, smoking and drug dealing inside and outside of the station without calling security or police.) They were "viciously attacked" as the girls were "egging on the young boys to prove their manhood. The beating continues. The blood flows. The CTA security and personal do nothing." Will Jesse Jackson run up to Rogers Park to protest what could be described as a hate crime? The CTA Morse El station is approximately 180 feet from the new Morse Theatre, which opened last October, 2008. The theater hoped originally to open in September, but the small matter of a gang style break in and arson delayed that. Many local residents are ignorant enough to believe (still) that the presence of a nice new business will reduce crime on this deeply troubled strip of Rogers Park. What the ignorant seem blind to is the fact that the Morse Theatre is not in the business of providing security for Morse Avenue, Alderman Joe Moore (49th Ward) still doesn't give a rat's behind about gang activity on and around Morse Avenue (even after 17 years as the city council representative), and the 24th District police are reactionary and not preventative in their approach to crime. CTA should be held liable for damages suffered by the bar staff. Had such an attack happened in a business establishment, the business would be held liable for not protecting the safety of its patrons. CTA should not be able to get away with this, nor should Alderman Moore or the 24th District police commander. It was New Year's Eve, for God's sake. Any fool should have known that the likelihood for trouble is heightened. The usually lax attention that the cops pay to the Morse El station should have been improved at least temporarily until sunrise on January 1, and Alderman Moore should have demanded that weeks ago. CPD needs to explain why a group of minors was allowed to loiter at 3:30 a.m. in a spot that should have been heavily patroled all night and until the sun was up. CTA needs to explain why their employee/s and the third-party security company did not call police or intervene in the attack, and why the little savages were allowed to loiter there in the first place. Yes, I did call them savages. Why no, that's not a racist remark. It's an accurate description of people who commit acts of savagery. What Rogers Park needs is a good public stoning of the local police commanders, the alderman and a few CTA officials. I suggest the intersection of Morse and Glenwood as the venue.