This weekend I marched through the streets of Chicago, a few blocks from where my innocent teenage brother Christian was murdered four years ago.That loss is what led me to found the Caldwell Foundation for Public Safety, driven by one belief: that no family should ever have to go through what mine did.Community members lined the sidewalks and cheered as we passed.
That moment told me everything I needed to know about who is truly fighting for these communities and who isn't.I invited Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson to join us.I called their offices.
I emailed them.I listed the invitation in my Fox News op-ed.
I extended the invitation publicly on national and local television multiple times.They never responded.
Not once.Not a word.
Not an acknowledgment.Two of the most powerful elected officials in Illinois could not even extend the basic courtesy of a response to the families of murder victims gathering in their own city.GIANNO CALDWELL: FOUR YEARS AFTER MY BROTHER’S MURDER, I’M MARCHING FOR JUSTICELet that settle in.
The governor of Illinois and the mayor of Chicago took an oath to serve the people of this state and this city.They had no answer for the mothers who have buried their children.
No answer for the fathers who live with a hole in their hearts that never heals.No answer for the communities that have been failed by the same political machine for decades.
They chose not to respond.Again and again.Their silence was loud.
And the community noticed.Gianno Caldwell holds a banner while marching in Chicago.(Gianno Caldwell)This is what failed leadership looks like in real time.
Chicago was once one of the great economic engines of the Midwest.Today it is a cautionary tale.
Ken Griffin, one of the most successful investors in American history, lived in Chicago for more than 30 years before packing up Citadel and 900 employees and moving to Miami.He did not leave quietly.
"I had two colleagues who had bullets fly ...