Cook County Commissioner Richard Boykin is urging Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner to declare a state of emergency days after the Chicago Police Department released startling crime statistics for the first month of 2016.
Boykin held a news conference Thursday morning at the Thompson Center. He plans to send a letter to the governor which would ask the federal government to provide additional resources to help combat Chicago’s violence, especially in the neighborhoods where gun violence is more prevalent.
“These individuals deserve the same level of protection that everyone else gets throughout the city on the North Side and downtown,” Boykin said.
January brought a bloody start to 2016 as Chicago’s streets saw more violence than they have in 15 years. NBC 5’s Charlie Wojciechowski reports
