“Failed Community Policing in Harvey and Dolton, IL: Broken Trusts, Broken Budgets” — Amir Shakur Speaks Editorial

“Failed Community Policing in Harvey and Dolton, IL: Broken Trusts, Broken Budgets”

— Amir Shakur Speaks Editorial— 

“Family, we need to have a real, unvarnished conversation this morning about what is happening right in our own backyard. We often talk about community policing, public safety, and accountability as if they are abstract concepts debated in Washington or downtown Chicago. But if you want to see where the rubber meets the road—where systemic failure actually hits the pavement—you don’t look any further than south suburban Dolton and Harvey.

Right now, our communities are trapped in a dangerous vise. On one side, we are dealing with real public safety crises. Just over the last few weeks in Dolton, we’ve seen families left grieving and demanding answers after the tragic shooting of former pro basketball player Khapri Alston at a local lounge,

and an agonizing two-month wait for an arrest in the fatal hit-and-run of 18-year-old Lania Smith (Below). Families are standing on the steps of village halls crying out for a basic, human deliverable: Answers. They want to know that when harm comes to their children, the machinery of justice actually turns for them.

But on the other side of that vise is a complete breakdown in municipal governance, ethics, and trust that goes far deeper than a simple lack of resources.Look at what is unfolding right now in Harvey. How can a community build a sustainable, trusted relationship with law enforcement when the department itself is facing a staggering 3.5 million dollar lawsuit? This isn’t just about a standard procedural error. This lawsuit hits at the very core of civil rights, carrying heavy allegations against the Harvey Police Department and the City itself for what is being described as state mob action and sanctioned violence.

Think about the weight of that for a second. We are talking about a legal action stemming from allegations of violence carried out by a group that many residents in the community are openly calling provocateurs—individuals allegedly acting community activist (including myself) on A July 14, 2025-Mob Action by A group called INA or Investigate and Advocate (pictured, below) with the what many believe was the backing, or at least the blind eye, of the City of Harvey to incite chaos and inflict harm. When the public begins to suspect that the lines between the protectors and the provocateurs have completely blurred, the foundational contract between the people and the government is officially dead.

And all of this is happening while the municipality is already drowning under 140 million dollars in debt. When a city is forced to furlough public workers and rely on the Cook County Sheriff’s Police just to keep basic patrols on the street, it cannot afford the moral or financial bankruptcy of a 3.5 million dollar Federal civil rights lawsuit crisis. That isn’t just a budget deficit; that is a total structural collapse of a community’s safety net.

Meanwhile, in Dolton, the cloud of political instability and administrative chaos surrounding local leadership has completely overshadowed the vital work of public safety. When a community sees its leaders locked in constant internal warfare, when first responders like firefighters are publicly protesting over safety concerns and forced overtime cuts, it creates a toxic environment. It sends a message to the citizens that the people in power are fighting for their own political survival, rather than the survival of the people on the blocks.

Here is the editorial problem we have to confront on the air today: You cannot have effective community policing when the community doesn’t trust the administration, and the administration is facing allegations of weaponizing violence against its own people.

When a police department is under-resourced, politically compromised, or distracted by multi-million-dollar lawsuits over state mob action, response times lag. Investigations stall. Officers become reactionary instead of proactive. And when that happens, the gap between the police and the people widens into a canyon. The community stops calling because they feel nobody is coming—or worse, they stop calling because they are afraid of who will show up.

We cannot expect our youth to stay on the right path, we cannot expect our neighborhoods to thrive, and we cannot expect violence to decrease when the very institutions meant to protect and serve are fractured from the top down. Harvey and Dolton don’t just need more squad cars; they need a radical injection of transparency, federal oversight, and absolute accountability.

It’s time to stop treating our south suburbs like political playgrounds or forgotten financial afterthoughts. The citizens of Harvey and the families of Dolton deserve a government that functions and a public safety apparatus they can actually trust. Because until we fix the rot at the administrative top, our streets will continue to pay the price at the bottom.” (ASN) -Community News

Amir King Seven Shakur is an Influencer, media strategist and digital broadcaster based in Chicago. Amir Shakur Speaks is a premier digital platform led by a sharp Journalist and Influencer operating at the critical intersection of investigative reporting and deep-dive social advocacy. By eschewing the superficiality of traditional news cycles, the channel provides a sophisticated lens for examining the global headlines through high-level editorial analysis and independent commentary that prioritizes context over soundbites. You may email him at amirshakurspeaks@gmail.com.