Violent Crime Rising?

Only the bean counters can tell for sure, but we're seeing a lot more reports like these popping up:

• As the exchange student and her 24-year-old friend were returning to the friend's Bucktown neighborhood home early Friday after a night out celebrating, they were attacked from behind and struck on the back of their heads by a robber wielding a baseball bat, police said.

  The attacker escaped with their purses, but one woman was able to give police a description of him before she fell unconscious, police [...] said. There could have been a second attacker, police said.

  The student was listed in critical condition at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center on Friday, while her friend, a financial adviser, was listed in serious condition at the same hospital, a spokeswoman said.

• A man jogging on the Chicago Riverwalk this morning was critically stabbed just east of the Michigan Avenue bridge, officials said.

  About 5:52 a.m., a person called 911 and said a man was stabbed on the riverfront jogging path about 50 feet east of the bridge, said Police News Affairs Officer John Mirabelli.

  The man, a 63-year-old, was taken in critical condition to Northwestern Memorial Hospital with multiple stab wounds, according to police and fire officials.

Remember, Daley doesn't care what the actual crime total are. He could give a rat's ass about 50 shot in a warm weekend with seven dead. All he does is look at the addresses and writes it off as "business as usual."

What truly matters is the perception of crime - the appearance that certain areas of the city are safe, inviolate, protected.

And when you think of it, this is running hand-in-hand with J-Fled's recent implementation of the perception of more police on the streets than their actually are.

AND (we're on a roll here), with Shortshanks' fascination with blue-light cameras that assist in the perception that everything is being watched all the time by the police.

The trouble with perception though, is when it runs into cold hard reality - that there aren't enough police to watch formerly safe neighborhoods, that seeing squad car lights doesn't mean there are cops only a short ride away, that no one is watching the cameras and probably 33% of them don't even work properly. Expect more headlines.