Chicago Reader:

“The gun violence in this city is the result of lax gun laws, period,” McCarthy said after a bloody weekend this spring. “It couldn’t be more clear what we need to do.”

[ … ]

Before the movers and shakers of the City Club, McCarthy summarized that whole backstory by noting, “The African-American community is very concerned about mass incarceration.”

But he also said he understood why: “The war on drugs has been a failure.”

Not so long ago, that would have been a bold statement by a big-city police chief. But increasingly it’s smart politics to acknowledge the unsustainable costs of locking up drug offenders, if not the racial and economic disparities in who’s punished. And around here Mayor Emanuel and his police chief have trailed other elected officials in calling for reforms.

In fact, it’s sometimes unclear which side of the drug issue McCarthy hasn’t taken. He’s described the police approach to the drug trade as a “ground war” that’s meant to prevent violence—and, at the same time, he’s said that the police can’t solve what’s fundamentally an economic issue.

“Law enforcement will never fix the narcotics problem in this country,” McCarthy said Wednesday. “But we can use narcotics enforcement to reduce crime and improve the quality of life in the community.”

He pointed out that drug offenders outnumber gun offenders at the county jail by more than five to one.

“If the system is designed to put people in jail for narcotics possession, then we’re doing a really good job. But if the system were designed to keep people from getting shot, then those numbers would tip, wouldn’t they?”

McCarthy seemed conscious of it this time. “Jobs, poverty, lack of education are certainly cornerstones of what causes crime. But it’s going to take decades to fix them. We can do something about gun laws very simply with a conversation.”

On this point, at least, he is quite clear.

It’s the drugs.  No, wait!  It’s not the drugs, we’re making drugs too important.  It’s an “economic issue.”  No, wait!  It’s guns.  No, wait!  It’s jobs, poverty and lack of education that causes crime and mass incarceration.  No, wait!  Since I really don’t have an answer, it must be the guns.  Let’s have more onerous gun laws.  That will fix it.

So there you have it folks.  It’s obscene to watch, I know, secularists and progressives trying to plan society and engineer solutions to problems that they don’t understand.  It’s really a pitiful sight to see.

The best information comes not from what Garry McCarthy has to say, but what one commenter has to say about McCarthy.

Reprinted from NYPD Rants via Newark Speaks.com:

1. Gary McCarthy was found “guilty” in March 2006 over an traffic altercation he had in 2005 with two New Jersey police officers. A traffic court judge ruled that Gary McCarthy had blocked vehicular traffic with his police-issued car while he and his wife confronted two plainclothes members of the Palisades Interstate Police at a gas station along the Palisades Interstate Parkway. The officers in question had just issued a summons to McCarthy’s 19-year-old daughter, who was driving another car and became verbally confrontational toward the two police officers whom in essence were enforcing the law. When Gary McCarthy had arrived on scene he was clearly irate and violently confrontational and had to be grabbed by the two police officers whom also confiscated McCarthy’s firearm and handcuffed him as well as restrained his wife when she attempted to grab the gun from the two police officers. The judge fined McCarthy $200 for blocking traffic.

NOTE: Had this incident occurred in New York City to an NYPD Police Officer the individual in question would be charged with Disorderly Conduct, Resisting Arrest, Obstruction of Governmental Administration, Assault on a Police Officer, and Unlawful Possession of a Weapon. That is not even including the possibility of driving while intoxicated. Now mind you that is just the charges faced by an average civilian. McCarthy was acting as representative of the New York City Police Department so imagine when the next incident occurs, in what capacity is he going to be acting in Newark Police Director?

A not-so-pleased Garry.
2. McCarthy’s wife Regina – was charged with “unreasonable noise” – when she verbally abused and cursed at the Palisades Park Police during the entire incident. Most disturbing is the fact that she had attempted to retrieve Gary McCarthy’s confiscated firearm from an Official Police Vehicle while Gary McCarthy was fighting with one officer. Regina McCarthy had to be physically thrown to the ground as she fought with the officer over the firearm and rear cuffed face down on the ground. My question is what was her intention if she had obtained complete control of that weapon which was a 9mm handgun? Was she going to shoot the officers, break Gary McCarthy free, or just hold the officers at gun point? That is a very, very, frightening thought to comprehend!

3. McCarthy acknowledged he had had two glasses of wine at dinner hours before, but said he was not drunk. He also acknowledged that it was Regina who had backed the NYPD’s black Ford Explorer into the gas station against oncoming traffic. My question here is why was a non-certified civilian driving an “Official NYPD Police Vehicle” when she was not trained by the NYPD Drivers Training Unit as required by the NYPD Patrol Guide for all Line and Duty Officers? The bottom-line is she had no permission to operate the said vehicle! Is she going to be doing this with Newark Police Vehicles as well?

4. When the New Jersey Officers in question tried to calm Gary McCarthy, McCarthy only became more irate and confrontational and told the officers when they informed him that they were going to arrest him for gun possession McCarthy replied; ” “Knock yourself out.” Here is a man whom has no respect for police officers when he himself is an executive level law enforcement official in the worlds largest police department. How can men under him respect him? They certainly did not in the NYPD that is for certain.

Happy Garry. His wife Regina is out of town, perhaps?
5. McCarthy acknowledged that he had cursed in retaliation, that he had disregarded Regina’s advice to leave the scene when they realized that the Palisade Park Police were giving him more than ample warning to leave the scene before it escalated. He added that that one point a Detective Rossi threatened to put McCarthy “through the system,” while saying of his career, “Twenty-four years down the drain. How does it feel?”

6. McCarthy had also lied and denied a report that he had been reprimanded by the NYPD after he had gotten into an physical altercation with a off duty NYPD Sergeant at a cop bar in the Bronx on City Island the night he was appointed deputy commissioner.

On a separate incident McCarthy who was also out drunk again on City Island one evening was shooting out street lights with two other police officers one of whom was McCarthy’s brother whom is a New York State Trooper.

When McCarthy was confronted by an NYPD Sgt concerning the shooting incident McCarthy had retaliated against the officer later on who insisted on pursuing the shooting incident as a criminal matter. Needless to say the incident was quietly swept under the rug by the NYPD!

7. Gary McCarthy spent two days in a New Jersey traffic court in an attempt to explain away the circumstances that led to his being disarmed, handcuffed, and arrested. It is estimated that McCarthy had spent about $7500 on legal fees and court costs concerning the traffic violation. When confronted by reporters outside the courtroom McCarthy glared at the reporters for about five seconds before uttering the words through clenched teeth, “Get away!”

8. The traffic incident might not have even occurred had Gary McCarthy done nothing instead of intervened after his teenage daughter Kyla was ticketed for parking illegally in a handicapped zone on the Palisades Interstate Parkway in February 2005. The Palisades police officers who ticketed Kyla and later arrested McCarthy and his wife Regina testified they told Kyla that if she brought a handicapped parking placard to court, they would recommend her ticket be dismissed.

My goodness.  It just keeps going on from there.  I didn’t reproduce all of the comment.  None of it is surprising.  McCarthy sounds like a typical totalitarian to me.