CeaseFire Illinois workers say Chicago police officers are increasingly ordering them off street corners in Woodlawn along with gang members, interfering with their efforts to tamp down violence in the crime-plagued neighborhood.
The alleged harassment is the latest sign of tension between CeaseFire and police at a time when the two are supposed to be partners under a first-of-its-kind city contract to reduce shootings and killings in the South Side community.
Adam Collins, a spokesman for Superintendent Garry McCarthy, defended the police conduct, saying officers have a right "in the interest of public safety" to disperse groups off street corners "where gang members are known to congregate."
But CeaseFire workers say it is interfering with their work mediating conflicts, which often involves talking to rival gang members hanging out on the same corners. Over the last two months, as police disperse gang members, officers have routinely been rousting CeaseFire workers — known as "violence-interrupters" — off corners along 63rd Street near King Drive, CeaseFire said.
Police should be able to distinguish gang members easily from CeaseFire workers clad in their trademark orange shirts and nylon jackets, noted Marilyn Pitchford, program manager for CeaseFire Woodlawn.
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