Chicago abandoned the basics of survival. Just like crossing without stopping, looking, or listening — people and institutions ignore danger, assume privilege, and end up walking right into it.
CPD at 4625 S. Drexel Blvd. after an arson attempt, Sept. 8, 2025. SubXNews
When we’re kids, we’re taught the most basic rule of survival in public space: stop, look, and listen before crossing.
In Chicago today, people don’t do that anymore — they walk straight out, acting on privilege or assumption of safety, even in front of cars.
That behavior mirrors the city itself: officials and residents acting like they’re safe or entitled, while ignoring the real dangers — stolen cars with drum mags, shootings, suicides, homicides.
Meanwhile, CPD is focused on trivialities (smoking counseling) instead of enforcing the fundamentals that would actually keep people safe.
Morning Deaths, Silent City
Another woman murdered from domestic violence in Chicago. Romeca Meeks, 31, dropped her son at school in the Chinatown neighborhood at 20 East Cermak Road. She was confronted in the street by her child’s father, Carlos, and his other partner, Holly Johnson.
The argument turned into a fight, Johnson pulled a gun and shot Meeks in the face. She died at the hospital. Johnson was arrested. Family says no self-defense — just a setup.
A 24-year-old man shot in the foot and thigh on the 4000 block of West Cullerton. He survived. North Lawndale, 5:45 in the morning.
A woman jumped to her death outside the Starbucks at Erie and Michigan. Tourists rerouted, buses diverted, the Magnificent Mile turned into a crime scene again — 9:54 in the morning.
Suicide. Homicide. Boarded glass. Chicago selling death instead of revival.
Another Day Brings More of the Same
Michigan Avenue is boarded up and hollow. The morning suicide outside Starbucks still hangs over the street, turning the city’s showcase corridor into another crime scene.
CPS enrollment is falling again, with Chalkbeat reporting the district has lost nearly 100,000 students since 2000 — driven by school closures, families leaving, and years of disinvestment.
Vocational programs gutted, military programs removed, kids left without skills, while the housing market is valued in the trillions.
Wealth is transferring from one hand to another, bringing instability — it moves power from the people to the developers.
Pritzker sold the Thompson Center and the Damen Silos. The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District is moving land too. Each deal shifts control to developers and corporations, while working-class families are pushed out of the city they built and paid for.
Now even the Bears are moving their legacy. Kevin Warren’s letter makes it clear: Arlington Heights is the future, Soldier Field just another site in a long list already abandoned.
Another institution leaving Chicago behind, taking jobs and history with it, while selling the move as “progress.”
Police priorities tell the story of a city upside down. While stolen cars filled with criminals carrying drum magazines move freely across Chicago, CPD is dispatched to an anti-smoking mission on the CTA, event number 09171.
Counseling smokers while the city is flooded with guns and goons.
Even schools aren’t safe. At Peterson, a knife and scooter incident tied to migrant presence brought police into what should have been a normal day. Education collapses while public safety is theater.
Radio Calls Tell the Story
Logan Square Blue Line — CPD sent to run an anti-smoking mission. Event number 09171. Officers out counseling smokers while armed crews roam free, carjacking, robbing, and pillaging the city.
A stolen Kia Sorento rolls the streets. Five offenders inside, one carrying a drum magazine. They bail and dump the car in Dolton, on Kenwood. Gone before police even show — running into a basement, changing clothes, hiding who knows what, destroying evidence.
All the cops do is watch and talk on the radio.
Walgreens at 35th and State — looting call.
71st Street in South Shore — a migrant robbery reported.
Peterson School, 5510 North Christiana — knife and scooter threat, kids caught in the middle.
78th and Exchange — burglary in progress, crowbar through the door.
This is the order of the city: smokers chased, criminals ignored.
While The Streets Tell the Truth
Ida B Wells and State looked like collapse. Around 5:40 p.m., the sidewalk was lined with bodies while bike patrols sat idle at the Youth Hostel a few feet away.
A man smoked crack openly as Bears fans walked past on their way to the game — drugs on the sidewalk as the city put on its show.
The Roosevelt Jewel ran like an open-air market at about 6:15 p.m. Dealers moved weed, meth, heroin, fentanyl — anything. Babies in strollers rolled past. Not a single county sheriff, not even a squad from the satellite office down the block.
A Bears game day and the city let it go.
At Dunbar High School, around 6:37 to 6:38 p.m., two stolen cars sat dumped in the lot while kids crowded around the auto shop. This was once a place where students built race cars, learned carpentry, welding, bricklaying, plastering, OSHA safety.
Black tradesmen came out of Dunbar.
Military programs too.
All gone.
What’s left is kids hanging around stolen Kias.
South Drexel told its own story at 6:56 p.m. A neighbor tried to set the apartment on fire at 4625. Flames in the courtyard, fire crews already packing up as cops pulled tape and rolled hoses.
People on the block said someone tried to burn the place down. The sun dropped as the scene cleared — “Smokey’s rings are bad on that car,” a man joked. Everyone safe, fire out, but the wreckage spoke for itself.
The 47th Street corridor was lit up with blue. Around 7:05 p.m., multiple CPD stops stacked from Cottage Grove to Halsted. Squads bounced from corner to corner, but they couldn’t keep calls.
Each morning starts the same — stop, look, and listen. That’s survival, and it begins again every second.
A Jungle Sunset
The night ended in the Swap-O-Rama lot at Ashland and 41st, on the edge of the old Stockyards. The sun dropped behind the smokestacks, the same district Upton Sinclair wrote about in The Jungle.
A century ago, this was where hogs and cattle were dragged off the trucks at 39th Street. By the time I moved here thirty years ago, livestock still came through.
Now it’s just the shadows of what built Chicago — the Stockyards gate and the Central Manufacturing District across Pershing Road.
It’s a reminder of basics. When we were kids, we learned to stop, look, and listen before crossing the street. That was survival.
In Chicago today, no one stops, no one looks, no one listens. People walk straight out, assuming privilege, ignoring danger.
The government teaches us to stand still, even when the tiger runs at the antelope. Conditioned not to protect ourselves, told every crisis is managed.
But it’s not managed. Ludwig von Mises warned in Planned Chaos that central government planning doesn’t bring order — it destroys it.
Free people planning their own lives and work is what creates order. Centralized control only breeds collapse.
Chicago proves the point.
Guns, stolen cars, suicides, homicides, arson — and CPD sent to counsel smokers on the CTA.
Theater instead of safety.
The sunset over the Stockyards was real. Not staged calm, not City Hall spin. Reality. That’s what keeps us alive: awareness without manipulation, survival without theater.
Each morning starts the same — stop, look, and listen.
That’s survival, and it begins again every second.
7:31 p.m., SubX News signing off.
Sources for Report
Image 4625 S. Drexel Blvd. with CPD on scene of arson in progress, police tape being put up/taken down, and a resident nearby.
Chicago economy crime and migrant update 4:45 p.m. September 8th 2025 https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1EQArhAfaD/
Chicago Public Schools enrollment drops, preliminary data show https://www.chalkbeat.org/chicago/2025/09/08/chicago-public-schools-enrollment-decreases/
U.S. Housing Market Value Hits $55.1 Trillion https://www.zillow.com/research/housing-market-value-1-trillion-35518/
Open letter regarding Arlington Heights Stadium from President & CEO Kevin Warren https://x.com/SubxNews/status/1965233987384664223
CTA California Green Line assault in progress a male female are going after a female https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1Cemfrc7rb/
Black male harassing customers at the Starbucks 300 North Michigan Avenue https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16Dxdi1Dsa/
Columbian Migrant with knife Harassing and threatening her son three Hispanics and one Black person by his school Peterson School at 5510 n Christiana they’re throwing stuff at her window and trying to steal her son’s scooter https://x.com/SubxNews/status/1965174078261919919
Looting 3440 West North Walgreens three male blacks https://www.facebook.com/share/p/19nxXr64GH/
Robbery just occurred mixed race male stole her property 2030 e 71st migrants down there https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1E9MWNxaP4/
people are fighting 87th and State the McDonald’s https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1JK2kYSzkB/|
Stolen car and they have a gun with a drum 71st and Lafayette going Southbound https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1ACYMxLczx/
Smoking drugs on sidewalk while people are walking to the Bears game Ida B Wells 5:40 p.m. September 8th 2025 downtown Chicago https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1EuMqkznQ4/
Dearborn and Van Buren 542 p.m. September 8th 2025 https://www.facebook.com/share/v/19cLDDTjpg/
Downtown Chicago’s empty look at this parking spaces that are open and while we’re listening to the radio of a stolen car on the south side and they got weapons with drum mags 5:45 p.m. September 8th 2025 https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1FRW2URSzX/
Dumped the car 14330 Kenwood in Dolton multiple subjects went into the house https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1BUbmVDX53/
One detained in Dolton with that stolen car and the gun with a drum mag but there’s four others I think in there 1433-0 South Kenwood https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1HZFTunajk/
The guy that they have in custody doesn’t match the description it looks like they changed clothes https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1C5tUPrbLF/
10-1 Dunbar High School two stolen cars in the school parking lot https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16JpyeTHEf/
Another stolen car East 103rd Street heading towards Torrance https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1CAPVe4TLk/
Man said he was robbed at gunpoint🔫, by a male and female Venezuelan. Said they also dragged two other people into a building, nearby. https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1CwmEj2me3/
Imagine no cops around on a busy game day of the Bears and they’re slinging drugs out here on Roosevelt road by Wabash 6:15 p.m. September 8th 2025 kind of ridiculous ain’t it https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1ZtGBMi5Rm/
Illegal political sign 29th and Wabash 6:30 p.m. September 8th 2025 let’s figure out what employees are putting these up that’s going to be fun https://x.com/SubxNews/status/1965196142029013298
Sitting on a stolen car over here in Dunbar parking lot https://www.facebook.com/share/v/17MKafhruk/
arson in progress 4625 South Drexel the neighbor said and they’re trying to set the house on fire arson in progress https://www.facebook.com/share/p/15DcuzG6uoa/
Straight steel 89th and Vincennes silver Maxima https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1GmFeyohPu/
There’s a lot of cops on 47th Street tonight https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1aCyvA26wK/
Sunset Chicago https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1BiDEx3C7J/
