At Some Point You Have To Take Accountability…

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]A Walgreens in Chicago is closing its doors, citing rampant crime and theft, of course. And now the residents in this town are blaming Walgreens for leaving and saying this should be qualified as a corporate crime. The lack of accountability on this one is crazy.

[00:00:14]Let's talk about it.

[00:00:15]>> Yeah, >> guys, before we get into today's video, please like and subscribe. You know, sometimes we have to look at our communities and say, "Our communities have a problem, and it's a problem that we need to fix." And this story really exemplifies that. Let's get into the news.

[00:00:37]>> This Walgreens has been in the Chattam neighborhood for decades. A place where residents could walk and pick up their prescription. That will soon change as Walgreens says it's closing its doors for good.

[00:00:47]>> Do right by us.

[00:00:49]>> DO RIGHT BY US.

[00:00:50]>> They're making their message clear and known, walking inside the Walgreens.

[00:00:54]What do you mean do right by us? Do right by us. Do right by yourselves.

[00:00:59]Okay, your community members are robbing this Walgreens. They're making it unsafe for the workers of the Walgreens. And guess what? The owners are going, "Well, it doesn't make sense for us to have this store here. We are losing more than we're gaining. And so, we must leave, as any business owner would do if they could do." And here you are outside the streets saying, "Do right by us. Do right by yourselves. Hold your community members accountable.

[00:01:24]>> 87th in Cottage Grove.

[00:01:26]>> They don't care about the well-being.

[00:01:27]It's not their family that's on these meds.

[00:01:30]>> Walgreens recently announced it's closing its doors in the Chattam neighborhood due to a higher level of theft and violent incidents, leaving the closest location now more than a mile away. Daryl Smith says he relies on this Walgreens because his 76-year-old mother had a lung transplant and takes 54 pills a day. He says during his lunch break, he gets her medication from this Walgreens in the sixth ward.

[00:01:52]>> And if they close this Walgreens, the next one is not within the um distance for me to do on my lunch break. So, >> okay. So, the next closest Walgreens is a mile away. A mile away is not too bad.

[00:02:03]But still, I can understand the frustration here. If you are somebody who's living in this area and you need to get your medications and this Walgreens is where you go and now it's getting shut down, that sucks. But why is it being shut down? due to violence, due to rampant crime, if the business is losing more than it's making, what can they do? If they have workers that don't want to work there because they're getting assaulted every other day working in the store, what are they supposed to do? And instead of maybe looking to the people in your community who are responsible for these issues, looking to the politicians in this area who are probably not policing these crimes properly and not holding these people accountable. Instead, these individuals are turning to Walgreens and blaming them for closing the store.

[00:02:47]>> Inconvenience.

[00:02:48]>> Six Ottoman William Hall says he wants what they've done in other neighborhoods. Modifications.

[00:02:53]>> What we're witnessing is again a tell the two cities downtown on 12th Street.

[00:02:57]They figured it out. On 87th Street, they just give up. They've been giving up in the fourth ward, the fifth ward, now the sixth ward.

[00:03:03]>> This isn't the first time Walgreens has moved out of Southside neighborhoods.

[00:03:06]Last year, we reported Walgreens announced it was closing five Chicago locations, including a significant store in the Bronzeville neighborhood at 35th and King Drive.

[00:03:15]>> Okay, now they should just figure it out. I know your stores are getting looted. You guys are getting robbed all the time. Your employees feeling safe.

[00:03:24]You figure it out. You're functioning at a loss. You figure it out. Other stores figured it out. And it's so crazy because we all are sort of living in this experience right now. Maybe not all of us, but a lot of us who are living in cities are going into stores like Walgreens, CVS, Target. Everything is locked up, okay? Or at least everything that's getting stolen is locked up. And you can sort of look at the products and go, "Hm, I wonder who is stealing this stuff." And if you think about it long enough, you will figure it out. And now instead of being able to go into a CVS or a Walgreens and shop around, grab what you need to grab, you have to go up to the deodorant or the foundation that you want, click a little button, wait around for an employee to come and let you into a case because people keep coming in and stealing from these stores. And eventually the stores, the employees, the store owners are not going to want to put up with this problem and they will leave. And yes, that's going to inconvenience so many lives and the lives of law-abiding citizens at that.

[00:04:30]But until we look at those that are not following the law, until we look at the politicians that are not enforcing the law, nothing is going to get done here.

[00:04:39]And instead of acknowledging the obvious, these people are looking at Walgreens and saying, "This is a Walgreens problem. you guys are responsible and you should stay here despite the fact that your stores are getting looted, robbed, shot up, your employees are getting assaulted and we're going to hear it from some of these residents. Let's let's listen.

[00:05:00]>> This place isn't just a a a store on this corner. This this place is a lifeline for many people in this community.

[00:05:11]And for them to just say they're just going to leave like that and leave us with nothing is unacceptable. This Walgreens has been here for decades. And for decades, the people in this community have been patronizing this place. And for you guys to just leave us like this is very unacceptable. It's unacceptable to these children. If they can't get the things that they need from a place like this, then you're going to leave us destitute and in a desert.

[00:05:36]>> Okay. Different theory, different maybe maybe a rebuttal here. It's unacceptable to have a store robbed every day. It's unacceptable to try to run a business and have that business brought down by the members of your community who feel like they can just do whatever they want by career criminals who are going in and shoplifting at any time they please and creating an issue for the store. And I say that as somebody living in Los Angeles, California right now, where we've gone through the decriminalization of shoplifting where they essentially told people that if you go into a store and steal less than what, $950 worth of stuff, misdemeanor, slap on the wrist.

[00:06:20]You'll maybe maybe get arrested.

[00:06:24]Probably not. Security doesn't want to deal with you. The police doesn't want to deal with you. Then when you do, you're out same day. So go ahead and do it again. And so long as it's under $950, you'll be okay. That's what we're telling people. And in Chicago, it sounds like it's virtually no different.

[00:06:43]So what do you expect is going to happen when these stores try to operate and they can't because of your community members? Why don't all these people organize and get together to start policing their communities, lobbying the politicians to do something about the crime in these areas and emboldening police to be able to do their jobs.

[00:07:04]Instead, it's AAB and BLM and let's blame Walgreens for leaving an area where it cannot function. It cannot function properly. We're going to watch one more video here.

[00:07:16]>> We're not here to beg Walgreens to stay.

[00:07:19]We are saying that their decision is the wrong decision. And in my opinion, it should be considered a firstderee corporate crime >> because the amount of people that will be hurt by this, the amount of elders that will not have access to healthcare is evil.

[00:07:34]>> It has been a lifeline for many. It has been a place where seniors walk sometimes slowly, sometimes with assistance, but with dignity to pick up their medications that keep them alive.

[00:07:48]>> Okay. And who is ruining that for these senior citizens? Who is ruining this lifeline? Is it Walgreens? No.

[00:07:57]Is it the police? No. It's your community members.

[00:08:04]It's the people living amongst you who think that they can go into this store and do this. Why is nobody saying a peep, not a peep about it?

[00:08:13]>> Not across town.

[00:08:16]not to bus rides away right here in their community.

[00:08:20]>> For families managing serious health conditions, consistency is critical.

[00:08:25]>> 29 years, my husband has dealt with kidney issues. Two-time transplant, I'm one of the I donated the second one.

[00:08:32]Walgreens has been a staple in our lives where we come from medication. Being a transplant recipient, that means he's on lifelong medication. Something we don't have time to search for to find out where can we get what he needs.

[00:08:46]>> Okay, there's so much here. How sad is that that that is now the change that so many are going to undergo who are living in this area who have this be their closest pharmacy to meet their medical needs. That is sad. But instead of looking to the people who are responsible for the current state of things, you just look over their heads and go to Walgreens. So much so that they want to call it a corporate crime.

[00:09:10]Let's ignore the real crime that's happening at this store and instead try to go after and indict the store for leaving an area that is not helping it function. You just can't make this [ __ ] up. You see this lack of accountability time and time again and with issues that look a lot similar to this. A lot of people are making this about race. So, let's talk about it. Let's talk about things like BLM and AAB where you see a story come out of somebody who's been shot by police or who's claimed to be mishandled by police and then you go, "Oh, wow. That sounds really bad. We need to hold these police accountable for their acts of brutality." Then you get the body cam footage and you see that the person was running up on police, wasn't listening to them, wasn't following any of the directives being given by the particular police officer.

[00:10:03]And then when you say, "Huh? Well, that might be the natural progression of how things go when people act like that in in your community. It's just la black lives matter, police are the problem." And it's the same thing happening here. Maybe the criminals coming into your Walgreens and shoplifting are the problem. La Maybe the politicians who are decriminalizing these acts or choosing not to go after these people are the problem. La maybe your city is poorly run. And so long as it is poorly run, these stores are going to continue to snatch their business away. La.

[00:10:43]And we're going to watch this happen in so many metropolitan areas in this country because so many stores are experiencing this. And there's only so much plexiglass and I don't know, Kepler vests they can put on a [ __ ] cashier before they go, you know what? We are operating at a loss. And you know what we do when we operate at a loss? We pay even more to get our asses out of this situation. This is not a win for the Walgreens. They have to go through closing the stores, letting go of the employees, working with the merchandise, all the different shipping and distribution they have going on in that place. They have to reorder and remove and and get to somewhere else. I'm assuming this is not something that a store wants to have to go through. But here we are because your community members can't stop having sticky fingers and I don't know, punching cashiers in the face. And at some point, we got to look not necessarily in the mirror, but around our communities and start I don't know acknowledging what the real problem is.

[00:11:46]Guys, those are my thoughts on this Walgreens closure. I would love to hear yours in the comments down below. Let me know how you feel about this. If you disagree with anything I said in this video, do get out, but do so respectfully. I encourage healthy debate on this channel. And if you like this video, like, subscribe, click the notification bell to be notified every single time I post a video for you guys, which is every day. And I will see you guys tomorrow. Bye, guys.