Laquan McDonald's great uncle Rev. Hunter calls President Biden's anti-crime plan a mistake

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Some Chicago alderman say emergency hearings are needed this week because of concerns about the Chicago Police Department, and how officers are being used in the fight against crime.

They are calling for the Committee on Public Safety to look at issues including officer scheduling, programs to deal with officer fatigue, and personnel shortages.

The push comes amid a challenge to President Joe Biden's plan to send a federal task force to Chicago to address the gun violence crisis here.

Mothers shared the names of their slain children as a group of activists once again pleaded for Chicago's gun violence to end Tuesday.

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"Just like we never forget what happened to our kids, we don't want you to forget," Corniki Bornds said.

After gun violence took her only child, Fontane Sanders, in 2017 and her cousin two years before that, Bornds joined activists' pleas for the bloodshed to end as they urge President Joe Biden not to send a federal forces to the city to help cops slow the flow of illegal guns to Chicago.

"You can no longer sit in the White House - in his ivory tower - and say, 'I know what the answer is,'" activist Paul McKinley said.

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Rev. Marvin Hunter, who is the great uncle of slain Chicago teen Laquan McDonald, said the plan to send in federal forces into violence plagued neighborhoods on the city's South and West sides would only make things worse.

"I think that rather than trying to deal with the aftermath of the problem, I think he can sign executive orders to deal with the direct problem because in Chicago, the problem is not the end result of the person that pulls the trigger on the gun as much as it is the system that allows them to have the guns, the system that has been created to allow this kind of culture to exist, not just here in Chicago but in America at large," Hunter said.

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Earlier this month, the Justice Department announced the launch of five cross-jurisdictional firearms trafficking strike forces to help reduce violent crime by focusing on significant firearms trafficking corridors that channel guns to major cities, like Chicago.

"The only program that is going to reduce gun violence in Chicago is a Black unity program. How about funding a Black unity program?" said Tio Hardiman, with Violence Interrupters.

Sandra Bland's mother, Geneva Reed-Veal, also urged the president to come to Chicago.

"For Mr. Biden, you know you need to be here. You would send a taskforce to do what? How about you send a task force and tell the DOJ to do what they are supposed to be doing in these cases," said Reed-Veal.

All of the activists called for congressional hearings in the city along with other things so local mothers who have lost children to gun violence could tell their stories.