A Vehicle sticker with street gang symbols, or a bunch of government idiots?

Glad I don't live in Chicago
City Clerk Susana Mendoza is a nice lady. I've met her. She is sincere. She is genuine. But she's weak. And apparently, she is easily manipulated by outrageous stories in the newspapers and a campaign of stupidity that says a Heart is a symbol of a street gang members and hands rising up to support First Responders are "similar" to street gang hand signs.
Since when did we surrender the Heart to the street gangs? Since when did we surrender hands reaching out for support to police, firemen and others a symbol of street gang idiocy.
I have never seen a government overreact out of fear of public backlash and fear that if you don't do anything, you will look weak. Instead, the Street Gangs have won. They have defined for us what our society is all about. The street gangs have defined for us what we can use and what we can't use.
I most feel sorry for the young Hispanic child who drew the winning design that a majority of the members of the public voted online to support. The public didn't see the street gang menace in the design by a 15 year old boy with no history of gang ties.
But a popular police blog run by retired cops who see sinister images in everything wrote a story saying it looked like it was a street gang symbol and the president of the Chicago Crime Commission, and the former Chicago Police Supt. Jodi Weis agreed.
Maybe some people might ask how much the Chicago Police really know about street gangs since they are NOT very good at fighting them. Maybe they're not the most objective people. Maybe the real issue is the winning design was made by a Hispanic boy. And that this was an orchestrated racist act to take away that award from a Hispanic to give it to a girl who is of Irish heritage. Maybe it was an Irish Cop who didn't like the Hispanic boy winning the design contest over the Irish school girl who came in second with her design.
Those questions are just as equal to the claims that the Chicago Vehicle Sticker with the salute to our first responders was a street gang symbol.
Tragic. 
The mother of the artist said it so aptly in the Chicago Tribune:
"I am very upset. I feel very upset that something so positive could be so negative," Jessica Loor told reporters crammed inside a classroom at Lawrence Hall Youth Services, where the boy attends school. "I feel there's a lot of haters. They can make anything out of anything."
Here's the official statement of City Clerk Susana Mendoza.
This is a disgrace. A disgrace to the City Clerk Susana Mendoza. A disgrace to the police department and their race-driven fraternity. And its a disgrace for the people of Chicago who live under the thumbs of what street gang members now define as our culture. Apparently what Street Gang members say is more important to some people in political power.
Here's the old "Street Gang" design:
And here's the new design from high school senior Caitlin Henehan:

Shame.-- Ray Hananiawww.hanania.com