stand-alone Department – Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson embraced a push for a stand-alone city Department of Gun Violence Reduction after a Juneteenth weekend marked by eight deaths and 40 injuries, including a mass shooting that left 14 people hurt in Roseland. The proposal, backed by
When Chicago’s Juneteenth weekend turned violent, Mayor Brandon Johnson did not talk around it. He stepped into City Hall and treated the bloodshed as a direct argument for change—arguing the city needs a stand-alone Department of Gun Violence Reduction with an annual budget of $100 million.
Johnson embraced the call in the wake of what he described as a holiday that “should have been a celebration,” instead “disrupted by heartbreaking acts of gun violence” that left eight people dead and 40 others wounded.
The mayor pointed to one incident in particular: a mass shooting in the Princeton Park section of Roseland that injured 14 people between the ages of 17 and 47.
After the weekend violence, President Donald Trump posted political potshots at Chicago on social media—an escalation in the national spotlight that followed Chicago’s own struggle on the ground.
The push Johnson backed is not new. Community leaders have urged Chicago mayors for more than a decade to create a stand-alone city department focused exclusively on reducing and preventing gun violence. This week, a coalition of city, county, and faith leaders renewed that longstanding demand.
The plan would consolidate coordination of gun-violence prevention efforts now housed across multiple city departments under a dedicated department, with a budget of $100 million a year. Former mayors Rahm Emanuel and Lori Lightfoot had resisted similar calls, but Johnson said he is for the idea.
In his City Hall news conference, Johnson said 13 states already have an office dedicated to reducing gun violence and that former President Joe Biden did the same at the federal level.
Chicago, he acknowledged, is operating under strain. The city faces a $1.3 billion budget shortfall and a $36 billion pension crisis. Still. Johnson said he would “work in conjunction with what this group is calling for. ” and end what he called a political “fight that has been going on for multiple administrations.”.
He also argued that funding the programs requires more than retooling city spending during a budget crunch. The centerpiece of his pitch was a revenue strategy aimed at bringing in money from large corporations and “those with means to put more skin in the game” to fund programs and services that have already proven effective.
Chicago already spends tens of millions of dollars on social programs aimed at reducing gun violence. and it employs community violence interrupters who seek to mediate and mitigate gang-related disputes before they occur. That spending sits alongside the city’s $2.1 billion budget for the Chicago Police Department.
Johnson said centralizing the work under one roof could make the effort more stable—because a dedicated department’s budget would be “more insulated from budget battles,” and could help streamline activity across city government.
“There are multiple departments that do work — whether it’s in community safety or senior services — that are distributed throughout the entire enterprise. Same thing with the Department of Environment and why we restored it. There could be opportunities for us to find ways in which we can better streamline activity. There could be better ways in which we coordinate stronger with county and state,” he said.
For Johnson, the pitch is also about turning fragmentation into coordination without losing momentum on day-to-day violence prevention. He said advocates’ proposal should be treated as a chance to strengthen existing work—connecting it more directly with county and state efforts.
He said. “Finding stronger ways to reduce gun violence in the city of Chicago — of course I’m gonna explore any of those opportunities. But I also want to be very clear: The real effort is gonna be centered around generating the revenue from big corporations and those with means to put more skin in the game so that we can fund all of the programs and services that have proven to be effective.”.
He added that it is his job to hear the advocates and find a way for the work already being done to be “aligned” and “strengthened” so Chicago can “ultimately build safe and affordable communities.”
The stance also arrives as Johnson continues to dodge a definitive answer about whether he plans to seek a second term. For months, and again on Tuesday, he refused to say he would run.
That uncertainty has fed political skepticism. Johnson was asked whether his endorsement of yet another city department was an attempt to “lock in anti-violence efforts that might not stick” if he ends up being a one-term mayor.
Johnson responded sharply and directly. “If you’re asking me if my decisions are politically motivated — they’re not,” he said. “I understand why people would believe that a politician would speak of their own interests. My interest is in building the safest. most affordable big city in America… The answers that I have can only be strengthened when other people are invited into the process to actually come up with solutions from a more collective response.”.
Johnson said he is pained by the weekend violence but neither surprised nor discouraged by it. arguing that “decades of disinvestment don’t go away in one year.” He pointed to “pockets” on the West Side where unemployment is highest and where more schools were closed. saying those areas need more “support and resources.”.
He also pushed back on the idea that the violence is spreading across the city in a uniform way. “I don’t want people to think that… gun violence is up across the board. There are some very specific, hyper-concentrated communities where it’s taken place. And trust and believe I’m laser-focused in those particular areas,” he said.
If Johnson follows through, the political stakes could be just as consequential as the policy ones. His full embrace of a stand-alone gun violence department could strengthen support among African-American voters. and endear him to religious and community leaders—exactly the coalition that has been pressing mayors for more than a decade.
Chicago Brandon Johnson gun violence Department of Gun Violence Reduction Juneteenth Roseland Princeton Park community violence interrupters Chicago Police Department budget city budget shortfall pension crisis