Where in Englewood Congressman Rush could take Senator Kirk was limited by Kirk's physical condition. But the Republican senator saw enough to agree with the Democrat congressman that help was needed in the South Side neighborhood.
"We are in agreement that these problems that exist in Englewood have to be resolved," U.S. Rep Bobby Rush said.
"I'm not going to give up on this battle, I think we need more law enforcement," U.S. Senator Mark Kirk said.
During the tour, the lawmaker's bus was only blocks away from a < a href=http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=9223970>shooting near an elementary school, located at 64th and May. News cameras were not allowed inside the locations where Rush and Kirk met with Englewood residents. Outside, one group said gangs are not the neighborhood's problem- the economy is.
"We need jobs, jobs, jobs. And if the economics stay the way they are, we'll stay the murder capital," Darryl Smith, Englewood Political Task Force, said.
The senator stood behind his plan for the mass arrest of gang members, including 18,000 gangster disciples.
"I think criminals, murderers are murderers who have to take them out of the community," Kirk said.
Rush questioned Kirk's belief, and that of Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, that the gang exists as an organized criminal enterprise.
"It's a figment of McCarthy's and the Senator's imagination that the Gangster Disciples exist," Rush said.
