In today’s modern culture, it is much more prevalent for people to watch bad things happen to others or perhaps film it on their smartphones instead of physically or verbally stepping in.

It was nearly another such incident for Ashley Knutson and Devante Garrison-Johnson. The young couple were visiting Chicago last weekend, which was unfortunate for them because that weekend was the “Teen Takeover,” wherein teens from the Southside and West Chicago storm the Magnificent Mile. It has become a yearly event.

This year’s “Teen Takeover” was organized on social media, and marauding hordes of teens flooded downtown, especially in the Loop area. Knutson and Garrison-Johnson had just finished shopping and were looking for a place to eat. They waded through a rowdy crowd of teens who decided to start pushing the couple. Garrison-Johnson confronted the teens and was immediately jumped.

Meanwhile, across the street, Chicago native Lenora Dennis had just finished her shopping and saw the couple being beaten pretty badly by the group of erratic teens. She tried to stop several police cars to help, but none stopped for her, so she intervened herself.

Dennis told reporters later: “I felt like if I did not intervene, that young man would have gotten killed right there. It was just something that I had to do because I couldn’t accept that.”

She confronted the crowd of teens and rescued the couple. Garrison-Johnson was badly injured and was feared to be concussed. The couple had been robbed of their shoes, money, and watches in the process of the attack. Dennis not only took them in her car and drove them to a police station, but she gave them money to help them get by until they got back on their feet.

Outgoing Mayor Lori Lightfoot attempted to sugarcoat the events, denying that the damage the marauding teens did was “mayhem.” Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson said, “It is not constructive to demonize youths who have otherwise been starved of opportunities in their own communities.”

Dennis expressed disappointment in Lightfoot’s response in particular, stating: “I’m sorry, Lightfoot. I voted for you … but I can’t be involved in any level of sugarcoating what I saw. That was mayhem.”

The patent lack of accountability that these politicians exhibit is precisely why there is such a thing as “Teen Takeover” in Chicago in the first place.

As our Mark Alexander wrote:

The vast majority of violence today is directly tied to the cultural devolution resulting from decades of failed Democrat policies. That would include the surge of violence unleashed by Joe Biden and his Demos since 2020. That surge was evident in Chicago last weekend when at least eight people were murdered.

Yet even in the midst of that mayhem, there was one brave woman, Lenora Dennis, who stepped in to help strangers. She was, as this author’s pastor would say, “a sermon in shoes.” She embodied the characteristics of the Bible and showed what it really means to love your neighbor.