Crime Thu Mar 29 2012
The Office of Inspector General and United States Attorney's Office announced today that former Chicago zoning inspector Dominick Owens was found guilty of two counts of bribery.
Owens, 45, of Chicago has been sentenced to one year and one day in prison.
According to a press release from the Office of Inspector General, Owens is guilty of accepting two separate bribes of $600 in exchange for certificates of occupancy at four residential properties. The maximum penalty Owens faced was 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each count of bribery.
A cooperating witness testified that in 2006 he asked Owens for certificates of occupancy for properties at 6109 N. Wolcott and 3713 S. Wallace. On July 10, 2006 Owens filed a request for the certificates in a database and then marked it as completed 12 minutes later. The witness then gave Owens $600 in cash in return for the certificates.
According to the press release, this is the final sentencing in Operation Crooked Code. Operation Crooked Code was launched in 2007 as a joint investigation between the Chicago Inspector General Office, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Attorney's Office. Operation Crooked Code has resulted in 22 convictions, including 16 of former or current City employees in Chicago.
Anyone with any information on corruption in the city government is encouraged to call the Inspector General Office at 866-448-4754.
— Monica Reida /
Action Now members rallied in front of JB Metals in the Englewood neighborhood on Thursday morning to highlight a parasitic practice of profiting off of stolen goods. Activists, many residing in the area, claim the scrap metal company knowingly accepts stolen property like fences or aluminum siding from scrappers thus depreciating home values and further harming the neighborhood.
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— Aaron Krager /
Op-Ed Thu Feb 09 2012
by Bob Quellos
City Clerk Susana Mendoza withdrew 15-year-old Herbie Pulgar's entry into the annual contest to design Chicago's city sticker yesterday after fears that the sticker design contained gang affiliated symbols and threats to the Chicago Police Department. This action and the controversy surrounding Pulgar's design leaves me with some questions and thoughts:
First, Jody Weis is still in Chicago? After a not so glamorous stint as head of the CPD, it seemed like Jody Weis had finally been run out of town. Apparently not. Perhaps Weis put himself forward as head interpreter of the city sticker as a way of letting us know he's still in Chicago where he's been working hard to put together a coloring book about Chicagoland gangs for the Chicago Crime Commission.
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— Mechanics /
Ameena Matthews, one of the "violence interrupters" featured in the documentary The Interrupters, was on "The Colbert Report" Wednesday night. No matter what you thought of the film or the effectiveness of CeaseFire's mission, it's clear that Matthews is a force to be reckoned with. The Interrupters will be broadcast on PBS's "Frontline" on Feb. 14.
— Andrew Huff /
Crime Fri Jan 20 2012
by Ronnie Reese
Shelly Friede, a single mother of three, looked a high-ranking member of the conservative Vice Lords street gang in the eye and asked a question.
"Are you trying to shoot my children?"
That was seven years ago, when Friede first moved into subsidized housing in the 4400 block of North Magnolia in Uptown. Her 24-unit courtyard building stood in Black P Stone Ranger territory and had been riddled with bullets from a drive-by shooting by the rival Vice Lords.
Two years later, Friede was pregnant with her youngest child, Sebastian, when her family came under fire again. This time, it was an internal dispute among the P Stones as "they shot down the gangway, then shot over my head," she recalled.
The physical landscape of Uptown has changed a great deal since Friede's first run-in with violence there. Wilson Yard, a former CTA rail storage and maintenance facility destroyed by fire in 1996, has been redeveloped to include residential apartments, a Target and an Aldi supermarket. Nearby, a mid-rise residential condominium sits on the former site of the 46th Ward office in the 1000 block of West Montrose Avenue.
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— Mechanics /
Feature Tue Dec 13 2011
By Michael Moreci
Earlier this year, Tio Hardiman saved the life of a young man who was about to be murdered by an elder member of his own gang. There was a miscommunication when the young man abruptly disappeared to care for his ailing mother; at the same time, his gang was raided by the police, leaving the gang to suspect they'd been sold out. Hardiman got word of the execution that was about to take place and literally talked the elder gang member down — but not after having his own life threatened.
"He told me he was going to put me to sleep," Hardiman said.
For some, this intervention would be heroic act of courage; for Hardiman, it's another day at the office.
Hardiman is an "interrupter" for — and director of — CeaseFire, a non-violence organization based out of the University of Illinois at Chicago campus. The role of an interrupter is exactly what it sounds like — Hardiman, and others like him, work to prevent retaliatory violence.
"People can change, that's what we believe," Hardiman said. "We're in the business of changing behavior and mindsets associated with violence."
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— Mechanics /
Law Wed Nov 02 2011
Two stories today, guys. First, this:
Solís introduced an ordinance to the City Council to issue tickets for pot possession of 10 grams or less instead of sending offenders to jail. The move would free up already bogged-down officers, he said, and put more cops on the streets.
"We are now starting the debate on what specifically marijuana usage is and what kind of system we have in terms of processing people from the beginning," Solis said, "from arrest through it being thrown out in court."
Under the proposed ordinance, offenders would face a $200 fine and 10 hours of community service instead of jail time. Solís and supporters presented statistics showing minorities currently are disproportionately arrested for small amounts of pots.
Meanwhile, over at the Sun-Times, this:
In recent years, Chicago and Atlanta have become key transportation hubs for the cartels, Riley said. Most of their pot comes to Chicago in trains and semi trucks.
A lot of that marijuana is being shipped here by the Sinaloa Cartel and protected with unthinkable violence, Riley said.
"Chapo Guzman, now that Osama is dead, is in my opinion the most dangerous criminal in the world and probably the most wealthy criminal in the world," he said. "Guzman was in the Forbes Top 100 most wealthy people in the world. His ability to produce revenue off marijuana, we've never seen it before. We've never seen a criminal organization so well-focused and with such business sense, and so vicious and violent."
....
"The guy sitting on the patio in Hinsdale -- smoking a joint with his friend and having a drink -- better think twice," Riley said. "Because he's part of the problem."
So no pressure or anything, but smoking a joint on your porch means you love the new Osama Bin Laden.
— Ramsin Canon /
Justice Fri Aug 19 2011
Updated with comment from Governor Quinn's office
by Shelly Ruzicka
Yesterday undocumented youth in Chicago led hundreds of families, allies, and religious supporters in a large demonstration protesting the Department of Homeland Security's "Secure Communities" program, or S-Comm. Hearings have recently been held across the country after ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) Director John Morton stated that the program would be mandatory.
Not long ago, Illinois joined other states to opt-out of the voluntary program which required local police to fingerprint anyone they stopped and send that information to ICE. Shortly after Governor Quinn signed the bill opting out of S-Comm into law, Morton stated that the program would no longer be voluntary but mandatory, thereby negating the will of states to abandon the program which many say lead to racial profiling and distrust of police. Communities and county sheriffs have stated that "Secure Communities" has led to a greater disconnect between police and immigrant communities. People who witness crimes are afraid to go to police out of fear they may be questioned, fingerprinted, and deported. Women don't report domestic violence for the same reason. Workers are afraid to drive to their jobs or to pick up their children from school out of fear of being pulled over for a busted tail light or a cop who has been compelled to target "foreign" looking drivers.
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— Mechanics /
Chicago Thu Aug 11 2011
Earlier this week Action Now board member Marsha Godard tried to deliver a stack of violation notices to Bank of America headquarters. She entered as customer trying to receive assistance and help bring attention to the plight of vacant homes on the South Side. Instead of simply accepting them and calling it a day, Bank of America called the police and had her arrested for criminal trespassing.
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— Aaron Krager /
Crime Wed Jun 22 2011
NYU PhD student Drew Conway took a year's worth of crime data, released on the Chicago Data Portal on Sunday, and visualized it on a map of the city, creating a very clear picture of where and when crime occurs. Read more about it on Conway's blog.
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— Andrew Huff /
Police Wed Mar 23 2011
WBEZ broke a big story yesterday, releasing a video that appears to show two Chicago Police Department officers engaging in what the station describes as "questionable" behavior. Standing outside a squad car, the officers allow a large group of men to gather closely around the open back door to hurl insults as well as apparent gang signs and slogans at another man, who is visibly shaken, in the back of the cruiser.
The radio station posted the story yesterday, showing the tape along with some words by staffers Steve Edwards and Robert Wildeboer and the station's Pritzker Fellow Samuel Vega, who first found the clip. (Watch the video at WBEZ's site.)
Vega says he first came across the video on Facebook. Assuming it would be quickly pulled, he ripped the video, downloading it to his computer. As he predicted, the video and the user account did disappear within a few days--leaving Vega the only one known to have a copy of the tape besides its original owner.
The CPD responded to WBEZ's request for comment late last night:
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— Micah Uetricht /
Crime Mon Feb 14 2011
This article was submitted by freelance journalist Shane Shifflett.
After seven years and thousands of cameras, neither Chicago's police nor its public officials can claim that their video surveillance program, Police Observational Devices (PODs), is effective at stopping and preventing crimes. This shouldn't be a surprise, though. After sifting through mountains of crime data provided by the police and observing two Chicago neighborhoods, the Urban Institute, a public policy think tank in Washington D.C., couldn't say how well the cameras were working. What may be surprising, however, is that the police department looked into this twice before; they never shared the findings and evidence suggests no one will ever know if the system is truly effective.
In 2005, a group of Northwestern University students led by Dr. Mark Iris, professor of law and politics and former head of the semi-independent Chicago Police Board, examined 137 cameras throughout the city to conclude the system has "mixed levels of effectiveness." Which is more or less what the Urban Institute has said. Just one year later, in 2006, the Chicago Police Department evaluated 111 of its own cameras to uncover a measurable 13.7 percent decrease in reported crime incidents near cameras. Iris' study contained 100 pages of detail and analysis (with 42 pages of crime data provided by the police) while the police department's examination consisted of eight pages of findings and an additional 18 pages of crime data. But both of these studies have remained under the lock and key of the police department since they were conceived.
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— Mechanics /
Media Mon Sep 20 2010
Some good stuff to catch up on this morning:
CBS 2: Daley Mentored Others as He Shaped Chicago: But he's still "absolutely the best mayor in the country," Berry said. "Nationally there's no question he's been probably one of the most successful and important big-city mayors in the last couple decades."
Progress Illinois: Shift Expected at CAPS: The ground continues to shift at the Chicago Police Department. On Thursday, outgoing Mayor Richard Daley said he wanted civilians rather than uniformed police officers to run the Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS) program. Ron Holt, the CAPS director, told the Tribune that too many of the 200 to 300 officers assigned to CAPS were doing administrative and civilian tasks. Many are expected to be reassigned to patrol work.
In These Times Working Blog: Hotel Quickie Strikes Build Union, Workers' Determination for Contract Battles: Workers in Chicago, like most of these cities, are responding with overwhelming strike authorization votes, protest rallies, sit-ins and civil disobedience, campaigns to persuade organizations and individuals to boycott certain hotels, and-last week-a planned one-day strike against hotel union UNITE HERE's national target, Hyatt, in four cities.
People of Color Organize!: Solidarity With Whittier School Occupation: The Whittier Parents' Committee has been organizing for seven years to push Pilsen alderman Daniel Solis to allocate some of the estimated $1 billion in Mayor Daley's TIF coffers to their school for a school expansion - he finally agreed to give $1.4million of TIF funds for school renovation. Cynically, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) has earmarked a part of this money for the destruction of the school's field house, which has been used for years as a center for community organizing and services. This would directly undermine the ability of the Whittier community to organize and struggle for educational rights. Parents are demanding to be part of the decision-making process.
Austin Talks: March against violence challenges community to fight back: Graham urged residents to take a stand against gun, gang and domestic violence. Rev. Jennie Jones of Pleasant Ridge Missionary Baptist Church led the group in prayer and pleaded for strength in the fight against violence plaguing Austin.
Chicago Union News: Adjunct faculty at Chicago college cries foul while trying to organize: With only a few weeks until fall classes begin, some part-time instructors at East-West University in Chicago's South Loop are still waiting to see if they will be hired back to teach after what has been a "messy" summer-long conflict involving efforts to unionize.
— Ramsin Canon /
Feature Thu Aug 19 2010
[Editor's note: This story was submitted by freelance writer Michael Volpe.]
It was the end of January 2009 and things were looking up for Mario Benitez. His employer, Pan American Mortgage, had recently promoted him from a reverse mortgage specialist to head of the reverse mortgage department. That also meant a bump in pay that would finally end his days of living paycheck to paycheck. Since the mortgage market tanked in 2008, Benitez, like most mortgage professionals, struggled mightily with his own finances. Furthermore, he had made inroads in Chicago's Hispanic Republican community and was in the beginning stages of forming a political consulting firm dedicated to reaching the Hispanic community.
But his outward good fortune was masking an internal terror. For the last year and a half, Benitez was on the wrong end of a criminal proceeding. He had broken into his neighbor's home and stolen $130 almost twoyears prior when he was living in Florida. It was the sort of crime that would usually get a slap on the wrist had it happened in Chicago, but it happened in Brevard County Florida. He was dealing with it almost entirely alone. He didn't tell any of his co workers or friends. In fact, when he walked into the Brevard County courtroom on January 31st, 2009, he was still expecting to fly back home to Chicago at the end of the weekend. His expectations were wrong. For the next year and a half, Benitez would become a resident of some of the toughest prisons in Florida. He'd wind up in solitary confinement, in the crosshairs of a vicious gang, about to be deported, and he'd also wind up teaching mysticism to murderers, thieves and rapists. It's a journey borne out of recklessness, alcoholism and stupidity, but it's turned into a unique journey into America's underbelly.
Continue reading this entry »
— Mechanics /
Crime Tue Aug 10 2010
[This piece was submitted by freelance journalist Shane Shifflett, photos by Andrew Huff]
Millions of federal dollars have been invested in miles of fiber optics in Chicago and more than 1,000 surveillance cameras to create one of America's most sophisticated crime-fighting networks. There is, however, a problem: No one knows how well it actually works.
Nancy La Vigne, the director of the Criminal Justice Policy Center at the Urban Institute, and her team of researchers want to rectify this.
Their conclusion, which has yet to be publicly released, seems unique among the small number of similar studies conducted in other U.S. cities.
"The use of cameras is cost beneficial," La Vigne said.
To reach their conclusion, researchers compared the number and types of crimes in Humboldt Park and West Garfield Park to other neighborhoods that were statistically similar but without cameras. They discovered that for every $1 spent on cameras, the city saves $2 by preventing crimes, she said. By reducing the burden on the legal system society saves money, La Vigne said.
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— Mechanics /
Crime Thu Jul 01 2010
[This article was submitted by freelance journalist Michael Volpe.]
"Nigger boy, you gonna cooperate?" a 220lb. Chicago police officer screamed as he pounded on the chest of 16-year-old, 120lb. Mark Clements. As the beating continued, pain shot out from Clements' chest and exploded into the rest of his body. He gasped for air, struggling to breathe, in excruciating pain. Clements say the officer, whom he identifies as John McCann, had a way of getting his knuckles to the tenderest part of the bone.
Clements could barely read. He hadn't even finished seventh grade but he was smart enough to know what the cops wanted. They wanted Clements to confess to an arson that occurred at 6600 S. Wentworth six days earlier. The beating went on like this for nearly 30 minutes, but still Clements remained stubborn. He'd gotten into enough fights in the neighborhood to be able to withstand a beating.
Clements remained quiet and refused to give in even as welts grew in his chest from the officer's fists cracking his bones. Then, they stopped hitting Clements. Instead, Clements says, McCann grabbed his balls and squeezed. This was a pain he'd never experienced before. There was only one thing that would stop it.
"Yeah, yeah, I'll cooperate," Clements said, in unbearable pain. That's how Mark Clements remembers and recounted that night nearly 30 years after it occurred (neither the Chicago Police Department nor the Cook County State's Attorney's office would respond to requests for comment for this article). A few hours later, at about 2am on the morning of June 26th 1981, Mark Clements would sign a confession to an arson at 6600 S. Wentworth six days earlier that killed four people. A year and a half later he'd get four life sentences and become the youngest person in the history of the state of Illinois to receive a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
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— Mechanics /
Law Mon Jun 28 2010
Based on case law that found that the Bill of Rights applies to the states as well as the federal government, the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to strike down the City of Chicago's handgun ban. Despite conservative demagoguing, the City wasn't "ignoring" or "blocking" a Constitutional right, but rather operating on the basis of an interpretation that federal courts have upheld for generations. So while this reading of the applicability of the Bill of Rights (and other amendments) to the States may be better reasoned, it isn't plainly obvious, and pretending it is reveals the ignorance of the demagogues who do so.
Specifically the ruling would vacate a few elements of the city's municipal code, including Section 8-20-50, which classifies handguns as "unregisterable" firearms, thus making them illegal to own in the city limits.
As the Supreme Court's full decision states, the lower courts were following the direction of their own decades (and in some cases a century or more) of case law that directed them to find on behalf of the city, despite the recent Heller decision which vacated a Washington, D.C. handgun ban. Heller, along with some other recent Supreme Court decisions, created the precedents that provided the framework for this decision today.
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— Ramsin Canon /
Crime Wed Jun 23 2010
What will it take for Chicagoans to recognize a Chicago problem?
Today state Representatives LaShawn Ford (Austin) and John Fritchey (Lakeview) held a press conference [PDF] to bring attention to the costs of violent crime to all Chicagoans. The theme of the presser was that the rampant violence in parts of the city--particularly the West Side--end up costing all Chicagoans, not just the poor souls who live amidst the killing. While that's a good point, it's also a little distressing that in a single city, we need to use statistics like this:
Rep. Fritchey cited a 2009 University of Chicago Crime Lab report titled "Gun Violence Among School-Age Youth in Chicago"1, which states that the social costs that gun violence impose on Chicago exceed $2.5 billion per year, which is roughly $2,500 per Chicago household. According to previous research by Crime Lab member Philip Cook of Duke University and Crime Lab Co-director Jens Ludwig of the University of Chicago (Cook and Ludwig, 2000; Ludwig and Cook, 2001), every crime-related gunshot wound imposes costs on society on the order of $1 million.
...to convince people that the public needs to begin pushing for a real comprehensive look at the causes of street crime, and stop pretending that paramilitary operations are the only solution.
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— Ramsin Canon /
Occasionally, I defy conventional boring the shit out of yourself wisdom and read the transcripts from federal cases on the DOJ website. The Family Secrets trial of the Chicago Outfit has some particularly fascinating wiretap transcripts. Since I was whiling away the hours in this fashion, I figured I'd start pulling out some choice nuggets so you don't have to similarly while.
While discussing the alleged shakedown of the betting track owners, there's this nugget:
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— Ramsin Canon /
Last year Aldermen James Balcer covered up a mural that depicted the Chicago Police Department's "cop-in-a-box" lightpole cameras in a critical way. Free speech and public arts advocates cried foul, but Balcer won the acclaim of...well, I'm not sure who, exactly, but probably a lot of people who still use expressions like "damn hippies" and "crumb bums".
Now he's won an actual award for his brave act of censorship: via Edmar of the Bridgeport International, we get this:
3) Chicago Alderman James A. Balcer
The private owner of the property and the artist have a right to some due process before an alderman simply orders troops out."
- Ed Yohnka of the ACLU reacting to Chicago Alderman James Balcer ordering the painting over of a mural on private property.
For claiming the authority to destroy a work of art based on his personal assessment of the work's content, a 2010 Jefferson Muzzle goes to...Chicago Alderman James A. Balcer.
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— Ramsin Canon /
The Northwest Herald has reported that troubled Metra chief Phil Pagano killed himself this morning -- by walking in front of a Metra train. The apparent suicide follows a number of actions taken by the commuter rail transit agency against its director, who made more than a quarter-million dollars salary, following reports that he padded that amount without authorization, and the launch of a criminal investigation by the Cook County State's Attorney.
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— Jeff Smith /
Victor Hernendez addresses a rally in the state capital in Springfield. Hernendez was a victim of wage theft.
You work assuming you'll be paid, but too often, workers are simply denied what they're owed. It happened to Kim Kambra who worked at Jericho Products in Springwood. "They didn't pay me. I worked over 55 hours a week and they paid me for one week out of the last 10 weeks. My house went into foreclosure and I lost the legal rights to my house even though I still live there."
Kambra was one of many Jericho employees who were not paid. Computer programmer Bill Van Dusen worked for 12 years at Jericho but for three months in 2008 and another three months in 2009, Dusen was not paid. "I had to use the money we saved for our kids' education to pay our bills."
Jericho went beyond not paying their employees. The company "stole our deductions for health insurance and child support. They collected that but didn't pay it to the proper person they needed to pay it to," according to Van Dusen.
However, Jericho's owners have been paid handsomely. Kevin Lynch, one of the owners of Jericho Products would have wild venison for his dogs and chrome parts for his car delivered to the company while three employees' homes went into foreclosure.
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— Matt Muchowski /
Crime Fri Apr 23 2010
Think twice before you act a fool in a Chicago cab: the driver will soon be able to snap a picture of you to use if you get out of line.
The Trib is reporting that cameras will be installed in cabs around the city in an effort to curb crimes against drivers.
According to the article, in other cities where cameras have been installed, such crimes have dropped considerably. Already installed in some cabs, they've been used to easily solve crimes against Chicago drivers in the past.
Last fall, local journalist Kari Lydersen wrote a disturbing Chicago Reader cover story on the dangers that faced cab drivers in the city, focusing on the case of Walid Ziada, who was beaten last January in Lakeview. His experience is fairly common: a 2009 University of Illinois-Chicago study reported one in five cabbies have been assaulted on the job.
In addition to the dangers of driving, most cab drivers make far less than minimum wage. According to a 2009 study by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign's Center for Labor and Employment Relations and the American Friends Service Committee, "cabdrivers are chronically overworked and underpaid close to the point of 'economic failure,'" working grueling 12-hour days and making an average of $4.38 an hour. Michael McConnell, regional director of the AFSC, called Chicago cabs "sweatshops on wheels."
Insanely long hours, miniscule pay, high risk of robbery, frequent acts of brutal violence--it's enough to make you think twice before complaining about the high price of your cab fare next time. Besides, you should probably straighten up now that your driver will have a snapshot of you.
— Micah Uetricht /
Maria is lying on the bed. She's been trying to get up, lifting her head, maybe rolling over onto an elbow, but she's gotten nowhere. Another half attempt to sit upright. She reaches in her pocket and fumbles with a cell phone. She wants to call her best friend Tammy, but her fingers forget where they're going and never make it past the US Cellular logo above the keypad. "Tammy, you wouldn't believe what I'm about to do," she'd tell her. But she can't get as far as calling her.
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— Danny Fenster /
Police Wed Mar 31 2010
There are very few injustices worse than the wrongful imprisonment of an innocent person--and the loss of decades of their life in incarceration. Reading the brutal story of Marvin Reeves, tortured by Jon Burge and friends into a false confession and stuffed in prison for nearly 25 years, the moral certitude of the maxim that it is better to let a hundred guilty men go free than to punish one innocent man is plainly self-evident.
MARVIN TELLS me to pull into an alley, and we get out of the car. He points to a boarded-up window of another large brick apartment complex. "This was where the bedroom was," he says. "It was my sister Sonya's apartment, and I stayed there sometimes. I worked just around the block at a mechanic's shop, and I would come here and park my car right here, outside the bedroom window, so I could see the car."
He goes back in time to the day--August 26, 1988:
It was 4 o'clock in the morning when the cops knocked on the door, and my sister Sonya went to answer it. She unlocked the door, but before she could open it, they busted the door in and broke her toe.
She started screaming--that's what woke me up. The next thing I knew, there were two cops at my bedroom door, guns drawn and pointing at me, yelling, "Nigger, if you move, I'll blow your fucking brains out." I had no idea what was going on.
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— Ramsin Canon /
Media Tue Mar 16 2010
Kudos to John Kass for reporting on Outfit machinations that influence and corrupt public institutions. I mean that seriously; despite my intense dislikes of Kass' contrived folksy jus' folks columns, He is more or less the only mainstream reporter who regularly delves into the world of high-level organized crime and its interconnections to mainstream politics. His latest piece, marking the beginning of the "DeLeo era" in the 36th Ward--given the retirement of William Banks, the former Alderman, and the death of his brother Sam--is an eye opening one that reminds Chicagoans that despite the many body blows the Outfit has received, it is still alive and well and corrupting away.
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— Ramsin Canon /
