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Some people think Chicago's violence problem is an easy fix. Donald Trump thinks he could solve it in a week if Chicagoans stopped forcing law enforcement to be so politically correct. The Rev. Darrell Scott thinks he can come in from Cleveland and solve it by sitting down and talking with "top gang thugs."

The implication is either that our entire police force is incompetent or that residents simply don't care that 784 people were killed here last year. Either way, what they're basically saying is that Chicagoans are stupid.

The U.S. Justice Department recently told us that Chicago police have long been quick to turn to excessive force or deadly force against African-American and Latino residents, often without facing consequences.

Obviously, political correctness has never been at the top of some police officers' agenda. Sorry, Mr. President, that tactic has already failed.

Scott clearly knows very little, if anything, about Chicago's gangs. First of all, there are no "top gang thugs" to speak of. Chicago's former gang hierarchy folks like Larry Hoover, former leader of the Gangster Disciples, and Jeff Fort, former head of the Blackstone Rangers and El Rukn have been locked up for decades in federal prisons.

One of the reasons the violence is so hard to control in Chicago is because the gangs are so disorganized. Many of the neighborhood killings involve a small faction of teenagers on one block feuding with a small faction of teenagers on another block.

It isn't always about controlling the drug market either. Sometimes, someone is killed over something as silly as a Facebook post.

Sorry, Rev. Scott, your idea is ridiculous. If there were gang leaders with that kind of control, don't you think someone in Chicago would have figured out how to call a meeting with them already? (Scott later told the Tribune that it was a former gang member who reached out to him.)

Outsiders who think they can come to Chicago and work a miracle should have a talk with the Rev. Al Sharpton. His visits in 2013 opened his eyes to the reality of Chicago's violence.

It was shortly after 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton became the unintended victim of a gang-related shooting that Sharpton decided to use his national platform to put Chicago's violence in the spotlight.

He rented a two-bedroom apartment in West Garfield Park on Chicago's West Side for three months and planned to spend one night a week there, immersing himself in the lives of the residents. Over the course of his visits, he would go to schools, hold a town hall meeting and bring in celebrities such as rap mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs, director Spike Lee and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker to help him out.

But after one day exploring the landscape of Chicago's killing fields, Sharpton began to realize that he was in over his head. He found out that the city's homicide problem was much more complex, that it is tied to poverty, poor education, segregation and hopelessness. That was too much to deal with.

He did hold a town hall meeting attended by hundreds of mostly older residents fed up with the violence, but as far as bringing in celebrities, Sharpton said, "Who was Puffy going to talk to?"

Looking back, Sharpton told me Friday, the Chicago that exists today is not the same one that he used to visit in the late 1960s as a youth director of Martin Luther King Jr.'s Operation Breadbasket.

"You need a major overhaul to stop this violence," Sharpton said. "You can't address the problem without addressing underlying factors like jobs, after-school programs and the proliferation of guns."

Sharpton, like the longtime community leaders in Chicago, is apprehensive about Scott's claim during a Black History Month breakfast hosted by Trump that "top gang thugs" from Chicago had called him up and asked for a meeting.

According to Scott, these gang leaders are interested in "lowering the body count" in Chicago, but they'll do it only for Trump.

Sorry, Barack Obama; a black man who spent his early career working in disadvantaged communities on the South Side just couldn't cut it with these guys. These gang thugs will only listen to an old white guy who learned the little he knows about the South Side from a TV set inside his Manhattan penthouse.

"They believe in this administration," Scott told Trump, who hosted a group of so-called African-American leaders most black people have never heard of. "They didn't believe in the prior administration. They told me this out of their mouth. But they see hope with you."

Seriously? It's a shame that some black folks are using Chicago's violence to get a seat at Trump's table.

Sharpton found out quickly that Chicago has no organized gang structure. There is no one to sit down and talk to.

"The more I stayed and walked around at night, the more I realized that these guys didn't even know each other. They were spontaneous and organic," Sharpton said. "If (Scott and Trump) are looking to go into the community and talk to gang leaders, they are being deceived by people who are selling them a bill of goods."

Back in the day, Fort and Hoover possibly could have made such a call. They had authority over their rank and file and could call a truce whenever they wanted to. They ran their organizations like corporations.

They weren't always bad guys either. Some Chicago gangs started out in the 1950s with a political and social focus but gradually turned to crime. And they were well-connected. The Blackstone Rangers was awarded a $1 million federal grant in 1967 to fund a teaching program. In 1969, President Richard Nixon invited Fort to his inaugural ball. Fort declined but sent one of his generals instead.

Black street gangs in Chicago are an institution. And institutions are hard to knock down. You have to understand what you're dealing with here in Chicago.

"Once I came in here with all my intentions, I had to change what I wanted to do because it didn't fit the environment of what I found," Sharpton said. "If you are sincere, you can't be married to a preconceived notion when you find out the reality does not match your projection."

So does Sharpton think he made a difference in Chicago?

"I helped bring attention to some people on the ground who are doing good work," he said. "If pouring a glass of water in the ocean is a contribution, we did that. But the levee is broken, and the ocean is still flowing over."

No one is saying that these killings can't be stopped, or at least curbed, but it's going to take more than Trump sending out tweets belittling Chicago in order to make himself appear tough on crime.

His repeated threats to come in and take over if Chicago doesn't fix its homicide problem is beginning to sound like an abusive parent threatening to beat a child if he doesn't make all A's on his report card.

The most effective way to handle that child would be to find out what's keeping him from getting those A's and then give him all the support he needs to make it happen.

Instead of sending in black surrogates looking for a seat at Trump's table, the president should visit Chicago himself and talk to people in the neighborhoods who really know what's going on.

The Rev. Michael Pfleger, in a recent Facebook post, invited Trump to St. Sabina Catholic Church in Chicago's Auburn Gresham neighborhood "to sit down with the community and listen to our concerns about the violence and what's needed."

Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Illinois, said on her website that she had invited Trump to come to her South Side district and "see the reality up close and personal and work together on solutions." Trump didn't respond.

Apparently, he's more interested in talking about Chicago's problems than helping us solve them.

That's going to require more than a pandering preacher from Cleveland, which has a higher murder rate per 100,000 residents than Chicago, sitting at Trump's feet and feeding his ego.

No doubt, Scott will make his way to Chicago and spend a few hours talking with gang members. But even if he does, he likely won't hear anything that folks in Chicago don't already know. Gang members, like everyone else, need jobs.

If Trump can find a way to put these guys to work, I'll take a seat at his feet myself.

dglanton@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @dahleeng

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Think Chicago's violence is an easy fix? Ask the Rev. Al Sharpton - Chicago Tribune