AustinTalks (http://austintalks.org/author/ian-karbal/)
An Illinois Senate committee held a hearing early this month to discuss the database. State Sen. Patricia Van Pelt wants the Chicago Police Department to stop adding names to the database until legislation can be passed.
City official Joe Ferguson is collecting information from the public as he works on a report about the gang database. Some West Side residents shared their concerns at a meeting last week about how inclusion in the database – said to number more than 100,000 people – could be hurting innocent people as well as those who’ve turned their lives around.
On the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, Lt. Gov. Evelyn Sanguinetti and state Rep. La Shawn Ford discussed the ongoing epidemic, which has hit Austin and other parts of Chicago’s West Side especially hard.