The Chicago Police Department outraged members of a South Side neighborhood over a sting operation in which they planted a "bait truck" filled with Nike shoes to entice potential robbers. Community leaders said the controversial tactic is entrapment, and it's widening the divide between residents and law enforcement. A video posted to Facebook by local activist Charles Mckenzie last Thursday has been viewed more than 650,000 times and appears to show at least a dozen Chicago Police officers emerging to arrest a man for breaking into the parked semi-truck. A nearby freight company, Norfolk Southern Railroad, confirmed to the Chicago Tribune they were working with CPD on the sting operation to curb thefts in the area. Police are defending the tactic, but several community leaders urged the department to use its resources for something other than an attempt to dupe young Englewood residents. The police parked a truck with boxes of Nike shoes infront of kids lifted up and when people hop in the truck the police hopping out on them smh check on... A Chicago Police Department arrest report for one man arrested in the undercover sting labeled the joint Norfolk Southern Railroad investigation "Operation Trailer Trap." The company said three people between ages 21 and 59 were apprehended by police throughout the course of the sting operation. "This bait truck operation is an unacceptable and inappropriate use of police resources," said Alderman Roderick Sawyer, 6th, chair of the City Council's Black Caucus, in a public statement Wednesday. "In a moment where police capacity is clearly under extreme strain, these sort of tactics are the last thing we should be spending manpower and energy on." Mckenzie said the truck parked on 59th Street off the south expressway was effective in luring at least one young male, with the dozen or so police arresting David King, 36, shortly before 8 p.m. on August 2. Norfolk Southern Railroad spokeswoman Susan Terpay described the incident leading up to the arrest in an email to the Chicago Tribune: "The suspects saw a parked, unmarked trailer and then proceeded to cut open the safety seal with box cutters, broke into the back of the trailer and only then did they find retail shoes in unmarked brown boxes, previously secured and hidden inside." "I see a truck was there and I hear the guys saying, 'It's a bait truck, it's a bait truck,' and I'm out here trying to help the young guys get jobs and why is a bait truck in Englewood?" Mckenzie told WLS-TV. "It really hurt me because I'm out here every day fighting so hard to help the young guys to get jobs to try and help them get other things, and if they've got a felony in their background they're not going to be able to get a job with anybody." Echoing what Alderman Sawyer stated in regard to misguided efforts, McKenzie added: "How can we trust CPD when they're doing things like that? And let me get this correct, every CPD is not bad, we have some good officers out here that serve and protect well, honestly. But when they do things like that it makes all the rest of them look bad." Mckenzie said he hopes the people within the police department who authorized the sting operation will be investigated and that Chicago police should focus their efforts on the city's homicides. "There's a lot of shootings happening and no murders are getting solved," he added. "People dying every day and no murders are getting solved but you guys have time in your schedule to take out to plant a bait truck in our communities?" Last weekend, 53 people were shot and 10 were killed in Chicago area gun violence. Mayoral candidate Lori Lightfoot, who is the former head of the Chicago Police Board, also criticized the undercover Englewood operation. "Especially after a weekend with seventy shootings and zero arrests, news of this bait truck operation is an appalling display of misplaced priorities and a step backwards on the path to trust and legitimacy," Lightfoot said in a statement.<doc-sep>Police in Chicago are under fire for reportedly parking a “bait truck” filled with expensive shoes in a predominantly black and low-income neighborhood in an apparent attempt to lure people into stealing them. Residents of the Englewood neighborhood in southwest Chicago claim that last week, police left a partially opened truck stocked with Nike Air Force 1 sneakers and Christian Louboutin shoes in several places around the community, including near a basketball court where local kids play. A video shot by Charles Mckenzie, a local crime-prevention community activist, shows residents confronting police on Thursday for trying to bait people into stealing the shoes. The video shows the truck that allegedly contains the shoes, along with a large crowd of officers and several police cars nearby. One resident chastises the group of officers, saying, “Y’all dirty, man. … It’s a setup, man!” Another video, shot by Martin G. Johnson—a self-described “crime chaser”—reportedly shows the same bait truck in a new location in the neighborhood on Friday. Johnson also characterizes the police’s actions as a setup. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The police have not responded publicly to the videos, and it is still unclear exactly which law enforcement agency is responsible for the bait truck operation in Englewood. McKenzie told Vox that some of the officers he filmed said they work for the federal government. Last week’s incidents are part of a broader trend in policing across the U.S. In recent years, police departments have begun using bait devices more frequently in an attempt to reduce crime. Police intentionally place these objects—usually cars, bikes, or unattended packages—in high-crime areas in an effort to catch thieves in the act. So, for example, a bait bike might be left in a location where bike theft has been common recently, with the intention of catching serial offenders. The bait devices are typically outfitted with surveillance and tracking equipment so that police stationed nearby can quickly nab the people who take them. Advertisement The bait truck in Englewood provoked outrage among community members who say it is illustrative of a larger pattern of overpolicing in communities of color, particularly black neighborhoods, which punishes vulnerable people rather than meaningfully addressing the root causes of crime or poverty. In McKenzie’s video, one black resident can be heard asking a white police officer whether the police would deploy bait trucks in their own neighborhoods. The apparent targeting of those on the basketball court compounded some residents’ frustration. “There were a lot of young guys playing basketball,” Mckenzie told Vox. “Why would they do that in the poorest communities to people who don’t have anything better?” Sneaker theft is not a well-documented issue in Englewood. In fact, in the past year, the neighborhood has experienced a notable decline in violent crimes and car theft, according to the Chicago Tribune.<doc-sep>
Community members confronted a circle of police in Chicago's Englewood neighborhood over a "bait truck" filled with Nike shoes and allegedly left open by police aiming to lure potential thieves and make arrests. "Y'all dirty, man," a man tells officers in an online video of the incident published Thursday. "Y'all see kids playing ball and you pull a f----- Nike truck into the ghetto." But Norfolk Southern Railway, which operated the truck with assistance from the Chicago Police Department, denied that the sting targeted neighborhood youth and that the truck was ever left open. Three men, ages 21 and over, were charged with burglary last week after they broke into the truck, police said. Charles McKenzie, an anti-crime activist who put the video on Facebook, told Vox that the truck appeared next to a basketball court frequented by young people in the largely black neighborhood in the South Side of Chicago. Norfolk Southern spokeswoman Susan Terpay said the truck was never parked near a basketball court, but said that a ball could have been dribbled near the truck. The truck moved between several locations within a few blocks of rail yards and related properties, Terpay said. "Freight theft specifically in this area has been increasing as the volume of rail traffic moving through the city of Chicago also increased," she said, describing recent thefts of guns and ammunition from in-transit freight containers. "This week’s police operation was intended to directly combat such unacceptable thefts," Terpay said. Chicago police confirmed that Terrell Melvin, 21, David King, 36 and Floyd Allen, 59, were charged with burglary after the truck's secured trailer was broken into last week. Terpay, the railway spokeswoman, denied that the truck was ever left opened with its contents — the Nike shoes — exposed to the public, even after being broken into. Authorities use everything from fake drugs and modified cars to GPS-affixed packages and bikes to weed out thieves nationwide. Theft of in-transit property, known as cargo theft, caused nearly $27 million in losses in 2016, according to FBI data. Both local and federal agencies conduct such "bait" operations, Vox noted. But some community members perceived the bait truck, left in an impoverished neighborhood, as an obvious attempt to target black youth as racially lopsided arrests unfold nationwide. "The police parked a truck with boxes of Nike shoes in front of kids, lifted up," McKenzie, the activist, said on Facebook, "and when people hop in the truck, the police hopping out on them." McKenzie founded Gods Gorillas, a group promoting job assistance and alternatives to violence in Chicago. His video, which has 630,000 views on Facebook, later picked up another 290,000 views on WorldStar. In another video, YouTuber Martin G. Johnson allegedly depicts the bait truck traveling between locations with "plainsclothes, FBI-looking type guys." Once parked, he films community members telling authorities to remove the vehicle from their neighborhood. "Kids shouldn't be breaking back into trucks," a police officer responds. After the confrontation, however, the white truck is driven away. "That's what advocacy looks like," one man says. "Good job, people." See Johnson's video below, and read more on bait operations at Vox. (Warning: Video contains profanity.)