Gang members: Top cop's threats are harassment
Gang members: Chicago's top cop unfair
They say threats Weis made at secret sit-down are harassment
BY MARY MITCHELL Sun-Times ColumnistAt 10 a.m. today, a group of black men will gather in front of the Columbus Park Refectory on the West Side to denounce Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis' threats to crack down on gang leaders.
These are not the usual suspects.
Chicago police investigate a shooting earlier this year on the South Side. Police Supt. Jody Weis met with gang leaders last month to tell them to stop the killings or authorities would hold them accountable.
(Scott Stewart/Sun-Times)
Gang members are holding a news conference today at Columbus Park to address Police Supt. Jody Weiss' crackdown.
(John J. Kim/Sun-Times)
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They aren't ministers leading a march. Nor are they activists and politicians rallying constituents around a cause.
They are men who are affiliated with some of the city's most notorious street gangs. They are Vice Lords, Gangster Disciples, Kings, Stones, Hustlers, Souls and Cobras.
And they are going to Columbus Park to let Weis know they believe the threats he made during a secret meeting amount to unfair harassment.
Weis vowed to use federal RICO laws against gang leaders if a member of one gang shoots a member of another.
The threat represents a new anti-violence strategy that includes seizing a gang leader's car and home.
"The general feeling out here is that [the meeting] was a trick, and we feel it is unconstitutional for a person to be declared guilty before innocent," said Jim Allen, a self-identified Vice Lord and convener of the news conference.
On Monday, aldermen ripped Weis' secret meeting as "a desperate tactic" and accused Weis of negotiating with "urban terrorists."
The men who pulled together the Columbus Park press conference don't fit that stereotype.
They are media savvy -- even using the Internet to get the word out to gang members -- and are openly involved in trying to tackle some of the problems plaguing their communities.
Still, these men claim to represent the gangs that have been blamed for the ongoing carnage.
Unlike the aldermen who blasted Weis, these men don't consider Weis' meeting with gang leaders "negotiation."
"When [President] Obama was senator, he said he was willing to sit down with terrorists without pre-conditions," Allen told me. "What about doing that on a local level? If you trick me into a meeting, then I am there against my will. You don't have to play games and trick people."
Mark Carter, who will participate in today's gang press conference, is a consistent critic of Mayor Daley and his police superintendent.
"We've talked with Jody Weis about solving the violence in the past, but he is not interested in solving it from a community perspective," said Carter, an ex-offender who now advocates on their behalf.
"He is taking his marching orders, and whoever is giving those orders is trying the same strategies they have used for the last 40 years," he said.
Carter argues that under former U.S. Attorney Scott Lassar, and Patrick Fitzgerald, the current U.S. attorney, the hierarchy of street gangs was eliminated.
"They were very successful in dismantling street organizations," Carter said. "A lot of young people are not in communication with these older guys who have outgrown going back and forth to jail."
Larry Hoover, founder of the Gangster Disciples, is serving a life sentence in a federal maximum-security prison, after he and six associates were brought down by drug conspiracy and extortion charges.
And Jeff Fort, co-founder of Black P. Stones and founder of the El Rukn faction, is serving 155 years in the same federal prison on charges of drug-trafficking conspiracy and murder.
"You don't have traditional gang leaders in the black community in Chicago anymore," said Tio Hardiman, director of CeaseFire, an anti-violence campaign heavily funded by the state.
"Gangs are more like cliques. They may be 30 strong or 100 strong, but nobody is checking in with a leader before they shoot somebody," said Hardiman.
"It is hard to stop shootings even if you have gang leaders," he said.
Perhaps the most well-known former gang member in the city, Wallace "Gator" Bradley, said he intends to "draw a line in the sand" at the press conference.
"We want to know who are these individuals that are saying can't nobody tell them anything," said Bradley. "Brothers are coming out to say if you are part of my family or blood family, I am not with senseless shootings and killings."
Hopefully, these men will do more than criticize Weis.
If they have any influence on the street that could help reduce the violence, now would be the time to use it.
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