"Thank you for choosing to stay at Le Meriden Essex Chicago. Do not open and/or stand in the guest room windows as it will send an alert of a potential active shooter."Relatedly:
As Lollapalooza Opens, Activists Threaten Federal Lawsuit Over Chicago's Youth Curfew:
Organizers and lawyers with the groups said the city curfew's "Lollapalooza loophole" allows young people to bypass the 10 p.m. daily curfew if they are coming from a ticketed event. That provision benefits the wealthy, white suburban teens and tourists who flock to events like Lolla, while Black and Brown youth don't get a similar pass, organizers have said. [...]
"The backdrop of Lolla makes it clear who is allowed to be Downtown and who is allowed to move freely through their city without harassment -- and who isn't," said Kara Crutcher, a lawyer representing the organizations. "Black and Brown kids are simply not allowed the same freedom and permission." [...]
"Numerous courts -- including the Seventh Circuit -- have found youth curfews to be unconstitutional because they infringe upon young people's First Amendment activity, violate Equal Protection and can negatively implicate parent's constitutional rights," the groups wrote in their letter.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
That’s one way to keep people from watching for free.
If downtown Chicago does not host many Lollapalooza type events then the solution is easy: just rescind the curfew for *everyone* on those few days. Easier to enforce as well because it relieves cops from checking ticket stubs (are there even physical ticket stubs anymore?). Or better yet, just rescind the curfew permanently.
You are approaching this as if the Chicago PD are acting in good faith and are not at all racist. You're adorable.
Google "Jon Burge" sometime.
That’s a really bad cop.
My inner chaos goblin wonders "Wonder what it would take to get on the maintenance crew there and install remote openers on the windows in the superior and deluxe suites."
I would be standing front of that window all night. Such a stipulation was not part of my room rental agreement!
Personally, I try to avoid increasing the probability of a "red mist" outcome by even a fraction of a percent, but I applaud your activism.
So my speculation is, what is the number of people being paid to stare at building windows, all concert long? It would have to be large to have constant, complete coverage of every building that overlooks the venue!
Or is it 0, and they just setting up a police response any time someone calls 911 to report a shadowy figure? And, regardless, presumably they have a swat team waiting nearby.
What is the desired response time between "shadowy figure is reported in a window" to "police are banging on the correct door"? Thirty seconds? Five minutes?
Seems like a pretty easy machine vision problem so it might be automated. But even if detection was computer-fast was your last concern spoils much of the effectiveness. A Vegas copycat mass shooter could cause enormous tragedy in the minutes between detection and suppression. Thank you NRA for ensuring that evil people can have access to military grade battlefield slaughter firepower.
Not too long ago, there was a hick from Iowa who claims he "accidentally" brought some rifles with him to Chicago when he brought his girlfriend downtown in order to propose to her. He didn't "accidentally" forget them in his car, though: he brought them up to his hotel room, and left them near the window, because this is apparently a totally normal thing for Iowans to do.
The cleaning crew came in, saw some rifles near the window, had a vision of Las Vegas that nobody who saw that can really forget, and called the police.
That's the pretext they're all using for shit like this, and it's getting really strange. A 15 story building that used to house a lot of non-profits downtown was built in 1915 but apparently is now a "risk" to the nearby Federal building, because it's too tall. Now I'm not sure if people are familiar with the Chicago skyline, but it has a great number of very tall buildings. It's even famous for it. The GSA seized this thing using eminent domain and it's just been empty for more than 10 years (apparently you can't use an empty building to terrorism. Terrorisms only happen in occupied ones.)
It's reminds me of the Adam Curtis montage of skyscrapers being blown up from films made in the few years before 9/11. It's like they're manifesting it, partly to protect the jagoffs at Live Nation that own Lollapalooza and partly out of their own paranoia.
I mean, I wouldn't want to waste my time or as JWZ says, run the risk of going down in a hail of sniper bullets.
On the other hand, it feels like it might be a super tempting use of one of those cardboard cutouts of somebody famous. Surely some Rethuglican has one where they're armed.
Youth curfew was (and is) annoying and wrong to me.
I actually showed up to city council meetings as a fledgling teenager when they proposed to strengthen the curfew from 11:00PM for for my age group to 8:30PM, with a friend of mine. We didn't know what to do once we got there, but we felt it was important to at least show up to watch my rights dwindle in person.
The measure passed. We were the only two affected who attended the meetings.
I ignored it, just as I did the 11:00PM curfew. I was usually a good kid. And if I felt like stirring the shit tonight, then: That curfew didn't matter to me anyway.
(Also bemusingly, the council meetings were scheduled for 7:00PM on a Tuesday, sometimes ran long, and often started very late. It would have been illegal to attend some of them and then walk back home afterward once the new curfew went into effect.
"We made it a crime for you to personally address the problem that we created for you."
But I was just a kid, so fuck me, amiright?)
Also, Jamie? Can we get a preview-post function? It does not have to be a live preview, but I find it useful to look at my prose in a different light to catch things like the obvious errors above where I failed to correctly revise things.
It's a rich text editor! it IS the live preview.