Laquan McDonald and the CPD's Responsibility for Chicago's Gang Problem

      An appropriate uniform design for the CPD

Internal Chicago Police Department documents claimed recently that gangs were attempting to use the protests of the murder of Laquan McDonald to commit crimes and attack police!  Huh?  

What Laquan's murder actually shows is the culpability of the Chicago Police for the severity of Chicago's gang problem.

Police culture in Chicago has always been ugly, racist, and corrupt. It's history, Richard Lindberg summarizes in his book on the CPD is "to serve and collect."  The problem isn't really accountability. The CPD has always been supremely and supinely accountable..... but to the machine not the people. 

My conclusion from more than a decade of research on Chicago gangs is this: corruption and brutality by the CPD  are principle reasons why Chicago has had such an entrenched gang problem. 

Lets look back.  A major reason why the Outfit, Chicago's mafia, has been around now for more than a century is their cozy relationship to the top echelons of the machine and the CPD. Al Capone was best buds with Mayor Big Bill Thompson in the 1920s.  For decades the Outfit got away with murder.....  literally.  Here is what the reform commissioner OW Wilson said in the early 1960s about his CPD's record clearing Outfit murders: 

           Since 1919 there have been 876 gangland-style slayings in the Chicagoland area. [Of these] only two                                have been cleared by arrest and conviction of the killers.

The CPD did more than allow Outfit hitmen to operate with impunity.  In 1997, Chicago Police Superintendent and champion of "community policing" resigned when it was disclosed he vacationed with Outfit figures. In my book, The In$ane Chicago Way, I report Rodriguez's protection of an Outfit hit man, Pierre Zonis, who was also a Chicago police officer. And then there was Deputy Superintendent and Chief of Detectives William Hanhardt who was convicted in 2001 on running jewel theft ring for the Outfit. And don't forget influential Alderman Fred Roti who was indicted in 1990 for fixing a murder trial, racketeering, and extortion.  The FBI publicly named him as mafia "made man'" while Alderman.  The Outfit has persisted for a century in no small part to active support by the CPD and the machine.

The CPD's policy toward African American street gangs, on the other hand, was brutal repression and lawless violence.  Corruption didn't stop, but as I conclude in In$ane, changed its nature and vastly expanded during the war on drugs. When the gangs took over retail drug sales, the Outfit did not also order their loyal servants in the CPD to protect the new vice lords and gangsters. As the "Don," a blue blood Outfit leader told me in an interview for In$ane, "Without the cops none of this could happen." The gangs had to do it from the bottom up while the Outfit did it from the top down as our study of police corruption showed.

However, the main way the CPD has fueled Chicago's gang problem has been by its brutal and lawless behavior. The outright assassination  of Black Panther Chairman Fred Hampton by Chicago Police was only a sign of horrors to come. We can never forget how Jon Burge tortured more than a hundred African American gang members.  No officer reported him, though the screams could be heard throughout the station house. Burge represented the attitude by Chicago Police and their machine masters that extreme brutality on black people was acceptable.  To the CPD and machine, black lives have never mattered. Oh, buy off their votes when necessary, but treat them as less-than-human on the streets. If you were repeatedly beaten and locked in cages like a dog,  how would you respond? The history of  racist hostility by the CPD  explains the strength of gang culture in Chicago. And that brings us back to Laquan.

There are three important points about the murder of Laquan McDonald. First is the assumption by officer Jason Van Dyke that gunning down a black man would be acceptable. "I feared for my life" is now the standard response of police killers. Before they were caught on camera, they got away with it — and often still do.

Second, there were good reasons for him to think he could get away with it.  Just as fellow officers heard the screams of Burge's torture victims,  look at all the officers in the video allowing Van Dyke to kill. When gang members are present at a murder, prosecutors charge them all as party to a crime and they are deemed by law to be as guilty of the murder as the shooter.  The CPD may be upset that the community has a no-snitching culture, but the only effective no-snitching culture in Chicago is the blue code of silence.

Finally, States Attorney Anita Alvarez, McCarthy and Emanuel were aware of the murder and kept it under wraps.  John Kass points out that if the video was made public before the mayoral election, Emanuel likely would have lost to Chuy Garcia. If there wasn't a storm of protest and a "smoking gun" video do you think they would have ever fired Van Dyke or indicted him? Even Burge was never indicted for his tortures.   Laquan's murder was not an aberration but business as usual by the CPD.

Protestors are filling the streets. The CPD's ploy to "look out for gangs using the protests to attack officers" fools no one.  It has been the long standing violence by police against African Americans that has fueled Chicago gang hostility and fanned violence in the black community.  To understand why black youth are so hostile just watch the video.  The BlackLivesMatters movement has the capacity to focus the anger on the streets toward police reform and the machine.

A measure of justice for Laquan should include the indictment of all those police present at the shooting who did not immediately arrest Van Dyke. And it should include the resignation of Alvarez, McCarthy, and Emanuel for trying to cover up a murder.

Talking Common Sense About Gangs and Violence

The violence problem in Chicago is mainly about race, not gangs, guns, laws, or cartels.  

That’s what I’ve learned from two decades of gang research in Chicago.  Today there are more Latino than African American gang members and gangs in Chicago.  Yet nearly 80% of homicide victims and offenders are African American.  Despite this, CPD Superintendent McCarthy and Mayor Emanuel continue to blame “gangs" and avoid linking homicide to Chicago’ history of racial oppression.

Other conventional explanations for homicide also fall flat.  There is no evidence that homicide fluctuates with a rise or fall in the number of guns, which have plagued our streets for decades.  The  Chicago Reporter recently pointed out harsher penalties for gun laws are also uncorrelated with homicide drops.

The notion that our homicide rate is a product of drug cartel rivalries is similarly specious.  The cartels are Mexican and their local distribution thrives on kinship connections. The cartels have been at war in Mexico for nearly a decade yet their violence has not spilled over even to the other side of the border, much less Chicago.  El Paso, only a bridge away from violence-plagued Juarez,  is statistically one of the safest cities in America. The DEA may claim violence in Spike Lee’s “Chiraq” is about drug cartel rivalries, but their self-serving proclamations stretch credulity. 

Our homicide rate, with two small spikes and dips, has stayed constant for more than a decade. With an alarming number of gunshot wounds, it makes sense that random fluctuations in the number of people dying of gun injuries account for occasional increases and drops in deaths. Our homicide rate has settled in at about four times higher than New York City and half of Detroit’s. There is no evidence law enforcement tactics or interventions by groups such as CureViolence have had any measurable impact on our city’s homicide rate since its 50% decline from 1992 to 2004.

Superintendent McCarthy blames the gangs for violence but maybe he doesn’t understand that gangs in Chicago are radically different than in the 1990s. My book, The In$ane Chicago Way, explains how organized wars,  led by incarcerated gang chiefs,  brought homicide levels in the 1990s to twice as high as they are today.  Those wars didn’t end because of any new police tactics, but rather exhausted and fractured the gangs, breaking the hold of the old gang leaders. Today’s black gang members particularly are rebellious even against their old gang chiefs. 

Current research by Robert Aspholm and others finds violence is driven by spontaneous,  local incidents, sometimes gang related, sometimes not.  Drill raps on YouTube often replace memorized gang “laws and prayers” as motivations for violence.  What underlies the shootings in black communities are the same factors that for a century have produced higher rates of African American violence:  the daily humiliations of powerless, desperate, unemployed black men.  

From the 1919 race riots to the years of restrictive covenants and “hidden violence” to the building and then destruction of CHA housing projects there has been an unbroken line of oppressive conditions in Chicago’s black communities.  Have things gotten better?  Despite a growing middle class, the black poverty rate has increased since 1960 to reach one third of all African Americans. Indices of segregation have remained unchanged since the 1960s and the black unemployment rate has doubled. The pool of young, poor, unemployed black men are still on street corners and they are killing each other as this 2012 Chicago Reader graphic shows.

The attempt to blame the gangs fundamentally diverts attention from  the fact that to McCarthy’s police — and the Emanuel machine to which he owes allegiance — black lives don’t really matter. In the 1990s CPD clearance rates for homicide ranged from 64% to 69%. The Superintendent admitted that by September 2015, only 23% of all homicides were cleared. Read that again: less than one in four homicides resulted in an arrest.   When the gangs were at war in the 1990s it was relatively easy to figure out who was doing the shooting.  Despite gang claims they don’t snitch to police, court records show they did, pointing their fingers at rival gang shooters. Today, shootings are more spontaneous, and less controlled, making them in a way more dangerous. Young men hand out violent street justice as retaliation since police can’t seem to find the actual offenders.

This means McCarthy should stop his out of date tactics of threatening old gang leaders to control youthful members over which they no longer exercise control. His “Call Ins” claimed their first death October 13 when Tracey Morgan was gunned down after a meeting with CPD officers. While there have been persistent attempts by gangs to minimize their own violence, from the People & Folks coalitions to Spanish Growth & Development,  gang leaders today simply do not have the legitimacy, organization, or authority to stop the shootings.

Blaming the gangs also diverts attention away from police brutality and corruption. Jon Burge’s legacy has not been forgotten and serious attempts to bring real accountability to McCarthy’s CPD have been largely frustrated. My book demonstrated how police corruption helps gangs thrive. While good police work is part of the solution, bad police work is part of the problem.

All violence is paid for, the philosopher Pierre Bourdieu said. Chicago’s “structural violence” of racism and poverty is coming back to haunt us in many ways, including the hostility of poor young black men.  The rebellion that has been going on in Ferguson for the past year may be a portent of the fire next time in Chicago. 

Here is the uncomfortable truth: There is no easy answer to violence in Chicago.  Our city has to soberly confront its legacy of racism in employment, housing, education, and policing. McCarthy and Emanuel should stop blaming the gangs and calling for new repressive legislation. If the mayor is serious about reducing violence he needs to steeply increase investment in black communities. The best way to prevent violence is to provide hope to the desperate underclass of African Americans in our city. 

Trumping the Gang Problem

Donald Trump has a solution for this country’s gang problem. He says strong leaders, like himself or certain police chiefs,  could solve our country’s gang problem if only their hands were untied. Here are some of his thoughts on gangs:  

“We’re going to get rid of those gang members so fast your head will spin”…..“One of the first things I’m going to do is get rid of those gang members”….. Chicago police Superintendent Garry McCarthy “is a phenomenal guy.  He could stop this if we allowed him to stop it. … Believe me.”

Well I don’t believe him one bit. When McCarthy became the CPD police chief, he vowed to “eradicate” the Maniac Latin Disciples. Even his own officers made fun of him on that one.   I’ve been doing research and working with gangs for more than thirty years. Gangs aren’t going away no matter what we do.  With high levels of poverty, inequality, and racism,  gangs are now a permanent fixture in American’s urban landscape. 

I’ve concluded a bigger problem than gangs is our poisonous culture of demonization.  Trump exemplifies this demonization, but he is far from alone. Any trip to a courtroom where a gang member is on trial will reveal even more outrageous comments from prosecutors. For example, in one Georgia court where two gang members were on trial, the prosecutor told the jury that the name of the gang, “Folks” stood for “Followers of Our Lord King Satan.” Let’s see: young, black, male, gang members, accused of murder and being devil worshippers to boot! It didn’t take long for the all white jury to come back with the death penalty. 

I wasn’t in the courtroom for the trial, but years later I was called in on a habeas corpus hearing on the basis that the defendants had received ineffective counsel. I brought along a letter from a former Chicago gang squad officer saying how ridiculous the prosecution's “Folks” assertion was.  The death penalty still hovers over these two young men as the courts weigh the fate of the habeas petition. But demonization is standard fare for prosecuting gangs.

Rather than seeing the gang problem as having complex structural, cultural, and situational roots, gangs are essentialized by the media, politicians, police, and prosecutors as little more than evil cartoon characters.  And if gangs are evil, Trump’s final solution might be similar to Kurtz's in Conrad’s  Heart of Darkness:  “Exterminate All the Brutes.”  You can’t reform evil so why try? Destroy that which you fear! Deport! Incarcerate!  Annihilate!  Let’s not take time to think, let's stamp them out — now!

Life is not so simple and never was.  In my new book, The In$ane Chicago Way,  I look at the darkest side of Chicago gangs, their horrific wars, ties to organized crime, and widespread corruption of police.  In my other books I was focused on debunking gang stereotypes, but in this one I narrate the story of gang leaders bent head over heels on grabbing power and money.  I describe police who became drug kingpins in an unholy alliance with those gang chiefs.  But my message in In$ane is familiar: “Gangs are not one thing.” We need to think first and then react. 

The gang leaders who rushed to war in the 1990s number at most in the dozens and are mainly out of the picture now. Professional hitmen exist but it is hard to be a hitman and most don't last long.  The current fracturing of gangs in Chicago in part is a healthy rebellion of young gang members who were sent to kill, die, or spend their lives in jail by power tripping “OGs.”  We have a unique opportunity now to win youth away from gang life and enlist them in the struggle for social change. The #BlackLivesMatter movement represents the most exciting possibility in generations for a social movement that includes the streets. We should all join in.

But the 2016 elections are a dangerous time for demonization.  Trump has realized “law and order” has been a winning policy for US voters at least since Nixon.  Mass incarceration, stepped up deportations, and wars against gangs and drugs have defined both Republican and Democratic administrations for almost 50 years.  Dare I suggest we have failed to learn the lessons of the rise of Hitler and Mussolini? Have we forgotten the KKK and their terrorist lynchings? Do we still remember the names of Emmett Till, Michael Brown, and Milwaukee's Dontre Hamilton?  Have we forgotten where unrestrained scapegoating can lead?

#BlackLivesMatter and Gangs

In Ferguson, gangs are among those protesting the police murder of Michael Brown. In Baltimore Bloods and Crips denounce rioting and call for peace.  Are we witnessing something new where black gangs join in political protest rather than shooting one another?  No, we’ve seen this before and there are important lessons from history for the “new civil rights movement” about gangs.

  As a scholar who has called for the inclusion of gangs in social movements from People & Folks, to The In$ane Chicago Way, I’m closely focused on current developments. Police killings, brutality, and corruption are daily realities on the streets and gangs have a self interest in opposing police misconduct. The #BlackLivesMatter movement has created an “injustice frame” that has mobilized people from all walks of life, including gangs.   It has long been my mantra that “gangs are not one thing” and gang members have “multiple conflicting identities.”  Among other things this means gangs can take an activist role — and historically they have.

In the 1960s, gangs in both LA and Chicago were politicized.  In the HBO movie, Bastards of the Party,  gangs are described as the offspring of the Black Panther Party,  following Mike Davis’s history in City of Quartz. At the same time in Chicago, the Black Panther Party sought an alliance with street gangs mediated by civil rights leaders, including Useni Perkins, whose book The Explosion of Chicago’s Black Street Gangs is must reading. In the 1990s the NYC Latin King and Queen Nation took a pro-social path richly documented by David Brotherton and Luis Barrios. My own book, A World of Gangs, finds many examples of politicized gangs around the world.

What have these historical experiences taught us about gangs and activist politics? 

1. Law Enforcement will make concerted efforts to suppress any gang involvement in social movements and create divisions between gangs and activists.    We see this today in Baltimore. After the gangs announced a truce the Baltimore Police Department spread the slanderous story they had “credible information” that the truce was designed to allow gangs to target police officers for assassination.  In 1969, Chicago gang politicization prompted Mayor Daley to declare “war on gangs” killing and jailing important leaders.  In both LA and Chicago the FBI did all they could to incite violence between the Black Panthers and gangs.  In the 1990s the New York City Latin Kings' leadership were indicted in order to crush a transformed ALKQN. Gang involvement in politics in all three cities were effectively suppressed by law enforcement.
2. Historically, gangs who turned to activism had strong organization and progressive leaders, unlike the situation today.   In Chicago Bobby Gore was a transformational leader of the Vice Lords as was King Tone in New York. These leaders inherited strong organizational structures and through force of personality led their gangs into pro-social action. Today, at least in Chicago, the black gangs have little formal organization. The old leaders were discredited by the horrendous gang wars of the 1990s that cost thousands of lives.  Contemporary black gangs are not nearly as organized as their 1960s counterparts.  On the other hand,  with weakened organization, the alienated and hostile young gang members may be open to being individually or in small groups pulled into activism. There is an important opportunity today to reach out to gang members who may be willing to join the protests. 
3. Unfortunately,  desperation on the streets and police repression means other paths, including organized crime, remain attractive options for street youth.   What we learned from Chicago in the 1960s was that while the gangs were being politicized some of their leaders were also negotiating with the mafia to control retail drug markets. Both progressive politics and organized crime coexisted among gang leaders who led a desperate, alienated membership.  Both then and now the uncertainties of real progress,  repressive policies of law enforcement, and the seduction of a lucrative and ‘always hiring’ entrepreneurial gang, means sustained activism by gang members is unlikely. 

This does not mean we should neglect or reject participation of gangs and their members from the new civil rights movement. If we are ever to build a real movement that benefits those on the bottom of society, we need to include the US's one million gang members as allies. We must resist the lies of law enforcement and oppose their transparent tactics promoting disunity. But we also need to heed the lessons of history and understand gangs are not one thing. For me, the guiding point remains:  #BlackLivesMatters includes gangs. 

Paranoia Strikes Deep in the Heartland

Do you think this could be a gang-related  Rorschach test? Jody Weis, President of the Chicago Crime Commission, looked deeply into the Chicago 15 year olds' design for an official  sticker and what did he see?  Why of course, the  Maniac Latin Disciples!  How stupid of me.  I see it now: gang "forks".....  well sort of hands pointed upward and the fingers might be bent.....  Be still. Weis, the city's #1 Gangbuster  told us authoritatively:  “It’s very, very close to a gang sign..... It’s not exactly, but it’s very close.’’ He added with great seriousness: “It’s too close to be a coincidence.’’

But Jody, you also pointed out ominously that the "heart" was also a Maniac Latin Disciple sign.  Now this IS scary.  I have heard rumors— unsubstantiated I admit —  that the Chicago Crime Commission is going to call for the abolition of Valentines' Day!  Care to comment?  Don't you think the display of the so-called "heart" on Februrary 14  is "too close to be coincidence?"  

I wonder if Weis will also call for an investigation of Rahm Emanuel?  You know the mayor who fired him for giving the appearance of talking to gang members.  Look at this picture. Isn't Rahm "too close" to this gang sign sticker for it to be coincidence?  Take my word for it, this is not a good way, Jody, to reclaim your credibility.

Now, Chicago isn't the only place where paranoia about gangs runs wild. But in the words of Jack Nicholson in As Good as it Gets: "Go peddle crazy somewhere else, we're all full up here." One example of this has been a steady dose of "crazy" about gangs and the Arizona State University logo.   According to Sgt Epich of the Chicago Gangs Crimes Unit their logo is a replica of gang forks.  "It bothers me that, one, this gang will be wearing ASU gear, but also that ASU and Nike were so naive to develop it. In my mind  it's (gang forks..jmh)  the spitting image of the S.D. trident."  Will the Crime Commission call for a ban on ASU playing basketball gangs in Chicago or demand the arrest anyone wearing this logo? Should we worry about who King Neptune really was?

But let's add a note of seriousness to a thoroughly ridiculous story. One reason why Jody Weis is so concerned about gangs can be seen in the pages of the Chicago Crime Commission's newly released 2012 edition of the Gang Book.  For Weis, along with CPD Superintendent McCarthy, wants to elevate gangs to Public Enemy #1.  They both want their claim to fame to be the "eradication" of Chicago gangs. Good luck.  What is most likely to happen is their war will keep hostility between black and Latino youth and the police high and keep our jails,  prisons, and Temporary Juvenile Detention Center over capacity. And the gangs will shift with police pressure from one corner to another and grow in strength behind bars. Weis and McCarthy will be long gone and our institutionalized gangs will still be here.

The Gang Book claims there are maybe more than 100,000 gang members in Chicago.   Gangs, it says,  are the new "organized crime." Well, there are a few big time gangsters within the street gangs. The violence around the drug business is no laughing matter.  But take a gander just one column to the right of the Sun Times story of "Jody and the Stickers." There you find  a piece about a real gangster,   Cicero Outfit boss Michael "The Large Guy" Sarno who got 25 years for bombings, robberies, and serial mayhem. Ever since 1969, when Richard J. Daley and States Attorney Edward J. Hanrahan declared "war" on gangs, the attention of the CPD has been focused away from the Outfit and toward minority youth.  Only the feds ever seem to indict mafia guys. 

Looking at the Gang Book, we have to ask "what is missing?"  The new, improved Gang Book shows picture after picture of gang chiefs but there are no pictures of Jon Burge, the CPD Commander who ran his own gang who tortured at least 135 black male gang members for decades. Nor any pictures of those who knew about this horrific violation of human rights and did nothing, or protected Burge. Those pictures would include every police Superintendent right up to Weis and one very prominent former Mayor.  Nor is there a single word in the Gang Book about the Outfit and absolutely no mention of the culture of corruption within the CPD.  I wonder if it is a coincidence that Outfit bosses and Chicago machine pols have been such pals over the years while there have been almost no local prosecutions of the Outfit?  The Crime Commission's Gang Book would have us pretend Chicago is a world of good vs. evil, a fantasy world where police do no wrong and politicians are honest. That ain't Chicago.

So let's conclude with our own Rorschach test, this one from Vermont. It seems that prison inmates there designed a state logo for Vermont police departments. No gang signs, surely,  but look closely at the shapes on the cow. Probably not a coincidence either. 

Obliterating Gangs in Chicago

Police unleash war on Maniac Latin Disciples gang, arrest 120

“.....We’re going to obliterate that gang,” McCarthy told a roomful of police supervisors shortly after the shooting. “Every one of their locations has to get blown up until they cease to exist....”

Thus spoke Chicago's new Zarathustra, CPD Superintendent Garry McCarthy after two young girls were wounded in a Humboldt Park shooting. Fresh on the job, the new chief is aiming for a PR victory, but he is woefully uninformed about the realities of Chicago's institutionalized gangs. 

Oh, the pressure was on the MLDs.  When I hung around in Humboldt Park a few days after McCarthy's declaration of war, all the talk was about MLD soldiers being arrested. And most released the next day. No one was really taking McCarthy's words as anything more than the same old rhetoric we've heard for years. Except this time, this cop, doesn't "get" Chicago and its gangs. 

I'm taking bets. I'll give 10 to 1 that the MLDs will outlast McCarthy. Any takers? Rahm? 

So what's wrong with his aim to "obliterate" the MLDs until "they cease to exist?"  Let me count the ways and provide some basic education to our new CPD Superintendent.

First, we've mentioned that most of those arrested just got back out the next day.  Hey Chief, there is still a Constitution and Bill of Rights. Being a member of a gang is not illegal, and you can pick up all the soldiers you want for crimes like "dog-fighting."   McCarthy has embraced Jody Weis' retrograde notion of collective punishment.  I know much of the public hates gangs, but guilt by association is forbidden by the constitution.  Not that the Tribune or Sun-Times has stressed that inconvenient fact.

Second, where do you think the gangs are the strongest? The state prison system. The MLDs main leader,  Fernando "Fernie" Zayas, ran the streets from prison even after he was incarcerated in 1983.  The hood and the prison yard are two adjacent spaces for today's gangs.  For those guys you succeed in locking up, the vast majority will have their gang identity strengthened in prison, not weakened. Locking them up as a strategy to "obliterate gangs" will only backfire. 

Finally, the MLDs have been around since their founding by Albert "Hitler" Hernandez in 1966. They had roots going back further in a group called the Latin Scorpions. They have had multiple leaders killed, like Hernandez and Prince Enrique "Rick Dog" Garcia in 1996.  Their main leader, Fernando "Fernie" Zayas,  has been locked up for decades. Still they don't go away.  Chief,  they have "institutionalized." 

I explained this in my last book, A World of Gangs (p. 9-10).

 "Institutionalization means that gangs persist despite changes in leadership (killed, incarcerated, or “matured out”), have organization complex enough to sustain multiple roles of its members (including roles for women and children), can adapt to changing environments (police repression or civil war), fulfill some needs of its community (economics, security, services), and organize a distinct outlook of their members (symbols, rituals, traditions)." 

 Chicago's major gangs, unlike those in New York City, have been around continuously since at least the 1960s. They've seen lots of big tough police chiefs come and go. They are street institutions, and if you can recall your organizational theory from the late Phillip Selznick, you'll remember that institutions are not just "expendable tools" but "living organisms." They instill in their members a belief in the organization itself and create myths and rituals that keep the organization going. An institution is concerned more with survival than any specific activity. It adapts. Locking up a few hundred soldiers and thinking that is going to get rid of the gang is just plain silly. The MLDs are rolling with your punches.

Have the MLDs done great damage to the Puerto Rican community over the years? Yes. But your vow to "obliterate" a street institution makes you look foolish. You have a lot to learn about Chicago and its gangs.