Looting causes “anger, frustration, disappointment”

Benny Mathew, who has lived in Streeterville for the past five years, woke up Monday morning to a series of concerned texts from friends. When he visited the Streeterville Neighborhood Advocates Facebook group to find out what had happened, he was shocked to read about the destruction that had taken place in the neighborhood.

"Anger and frustration were probably the two strongest emotions," he said. "And I was sad, not just because of what happened last night ... For the last three weeks, there's been so many shootings and robberies and the old man that got his car jacked right in front of my building, by the Whole Foods. So, I think it was just a lot of frustration and anger and feeling disappointed and sad."

Mathew, who described himself as socially liberal and financially conservative, said he would like to see the city allocate more money to developing police officers "so that they can handle things more correctly and make less mistakes."

"I think systemic racism is something that's very much rooted in big cities, especially Chicago, but that's not something that's going to get fixed overnight," Mathew said. "It'll take decades to fix, in my opinion. That's the long-term play. But short term, I think you have to invest in having better training for police officers, attracting better candidates to be police officers and then getting rid of the bad ones. I think you need to have more protection around the city, because at the end of the day, Streeterville, River North, Gold Coast — that's what makes Chicago."

Prior to the incidents in recent weeks, Mathew said he had considered Streeterville the safest place to live in the city. He hoped residents would work together to take action without pointing fingers.

"It was always such an awesome neighborhood," he said. "And I think we need to come together as a community to figure out what we need to do. I don't have the answers. But I think if we can come together as a community, we can figure out some solutions and come to some agreement."