Jon Burge Found Guilty on All Counts - June 28, 2010 from Chicago News Cooperative on Vimeo.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Jon Burge Found Guilty On All Counts (VIDEO)
For Dateline: Chicago
By KATIE FRETLAND and RACHEL CROMIDAS
June 28, 2010
Jon Burge, the former Chicago Police commander at the center of the city’s decades long police torture scandal, was convicted today on federal charges of obstruction of justice and perjury. He faces up to 45 years in prison
Burge, 62, was expressionless as the verdict was read. He was found guilty of lying under oath in a 2003 civil court case about the torture of African American police suspects in the 1970’s and ’80’s. The jury — seven men and five women, including one African American– began deliberations at 3 p.m. Thursday. Their verdict marks the first criminal conviction of a cop in the police torture scandal. A report of a suspect being tortured by Chicago police first surfaced in 1973.
Juror Gary Dollinger, 31, said the testimonies of a former detective who was granted immunity and a convicted killer who died while in prison were crucial to his vote for conviction.
“I think it was first there was an overwhelming amount of evidence pointing to the fact that he was lying on his statements and there was some torture going on at Area 2 to coerce statements, between Andrew Wilson and Mike McDermott’s testimonies … those were the two biggest things that really pushed me over the top,” Dollinger, the CEO of an IT consultancy, said.
McDermott, Dollinger said, “he gets on the stand he looks a little scared when he’s up there, he’s got a lot on the line, they’re threatening to cut his pension, cut his health benefits lose his job.”
McDermott is a former police detective who testified he saw Burge point his gun in the direction of the area where a suspect was and that he saw Burge hold something to the suspect’s face. McDermott was an unhappy witness, who said he feared being charged with perjury and obstruction of justice if he did not recall details of the 1985 incident as the prosecution wanted him to.
McDermott’s testimony was inconsistent with his grand jury testimony.
“He changed his statement, but he never said no, there was no brutality,” Dollinger said. “[Burge] still pointed a gun and something plastic over his face.”
“All people who care about justice had a major victory today,” said Flint Taylor, an attorney for many of Burge’s accusers.
Burge attorney Bill Gamboney said he was “very disappointed and somewhat surprised” by the verdict.
“We’re starting to muster our resources together for a motion for a new trial and ultimately an appeal if it comes to that,” Gamboney said.
Burge supporter Jim Knightly, a retired Chicago police captain, vented his disappointment with the verdict.
“That they would take the word of convicted felons over a highly-decorated police officer,” Knightly said. “I’m sure Flint Taylor, the liberal attorney who has been hounding him for years, is happy. I hope he can sleep at night.”
“I’m glad it’s over,” said Ald. Ed Smith (28th), who sat through much of the trial. “This has been a great concern for a lot of people. It’s a case that has caused a black eye on the city.”
Smith said that the verdict should open the door for the release of Burge accusers who are currently imprisoned.
More than 100 people have accused Burge and officers under his command of torturing them during the 1970’s and 1980’s. The men said they were electroshocked, suffocated with plastic bags, subjected to mock executions, beaten and burned. The allegations contributed to the decision to place a moratorium on executions in Illinois, and Chicago agreed to a nearly $20 million settlement to four men who were pardoned.
Prosecutors never filed charges of assault or attempted murder and the statute of limitations has since run out.
Mark Clements, 45, cried in front of reporters in courthouse lobby Monday. He said detectives under Burge pulled on his genitals until he confessed to four murders and an arson. He served 28 years.
“I was 16 years old and these people stole my [expletive] life,” he sobbed. “I hate to tell you the truth. I sat in a prison cell, and I prayed for this day. Today is a victory for every poor person. I was 16 years old. This is America. Sixteen years old. What are we gonna do about other people who are sitting in those prisons.”
More than 20 people who claim they were tortured remain incarcerated in Illinois.
U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said the jury’s decision was a measure of justice, and that it was sad that it took until 2010 to reach a criminal court of law.
“What’s clear is that the jury necessarily found that torture occurred in Chicago police stations at Area 2 in the 1980’s and it’s a disgrace that in this city in the 1980’s people could be subjected to abuse and torture ranging from guns to the face, guns in mouths. Suffocating, electric shocks, radiator burns and that sort of thing.”
“We need to have it on the record that this happened,” Fitzgerald said. “We need to treat it as a fact that it was proved and recognize that it was an awful thing before we can move forward.”
During the past month’s trial, federal prosecutors called four men to the witness stand to testify they were abused in an effort to prove the perjury and obstruction charges. The jury also heard testimony from Andrew Wilson, who died serving a life sentence for the killings of two police officers.
The defense argued that the police torture claims were fabricated by career criminals for the purpose of getting out of jail, and Burge broke years of silence to testify in his own defense, denying each allegation brought against him during the trial. His lawyers played up his dedication to police work — that he often went out on the street with his officers, looked in on interrogations and spent days working without going home on the case of the killings of two police officers. Burge, ill with cancer, broke down crying on the witness stand talking about that investigation.
Burge joined the police department in 1970 and two years later was assigned as an investigator at Area 2, where many of the alleged victims said they were brutalized by police.
A doctor who saw one man’s injuries in 1982 wrote a letter to then-police superintendent Richard Brzeczek asking for an investigation into a case of possible police brutality. Brzeczek forwarded the letter to Mayor Richard M. Daley, then Cook County State’s Attorney, but charges were never brought against any officers.
Daley’s name was not mentioned during the trial.
The Chicago Police Board fired Burge in 1993, three years after a report by the police department’s Office of Professional Standards sustained Wilson’s accusation that Burge abused him and found evidence of systemic abuse at Area Two.
Taylor said men who worked under Burge could still be prosecuted on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. As of May, a grand jury was hearing matters involving detectives who worked under Burge at Area Two in the 1970’s and 1980’s, according to documents filed in the Burge case.
Fitzgerald declined to comment on that investigation.
Judge Joan Lefkow found that eight people could take the Fifth Amendment and not testify in the Burge case. They are former assistant state’s attorney Larry Hyman and retired police officers Michael Hoke, Thomas McKenna, Ronald Boffo, James Pienta, John Paladino, Dave Dioguardi and Leonard Bajenski.
Clements said he will never get back the time he missed with his daughter.
“My daughter is 29 years old,” he said. “I missed all those years with my daughter sitting in a prison cell for a crime I did not commit. I do not feel sorry for Jon Burge. I do not feel sorry for him.”
By KATIE FRETLAND and RACHEL CROMIDAS
June 28, 2010
Jon Burge, the former Chicago Police commander at the center of the city’s decades long police torture scandal, was convicted today on federal charges of obstruction of justice and perjury. He faces up to 45 years in prison
Burge, 62, was expressionless as the verdict was read. He was found guilty of lying under oath in a 2003 civil court case about the torture of African American police suspects in the 1970’s and ’80’s. The jury — seven men and five women, including one African American– began deliberations at 3 p.m. Thursday. Their verdict marks the first criminal conviction of a cop in the police torture scandal. A report of a suspect being tortured by Chicago police first surfaced in 1973.
Juror Gary Dollinger, 31, said the testimonies of a former detective who was granted immunity and a convicted killer who died while in prison were crucial to his vote for conviction.
“I think it was first there was an overwhelming amount of evidence pointing to the fact that he was lying on his statements and there was some torture going on at Area 2 to coerce statements, between Andrew Wilson and Mike McDermott’s testimonies … those were the two biggest things that really pushed me over the top,” Dollinger, the CEO of an IT consultancy, said.
McDermott, Dollinger said, “he gets on the stand he looks a little scared when he’s up there, he’s got a lot on the line, they’re threatening to cut his pension, cut his health benefits lose his job.”
McDermott is a former police detective who testified he saw Burge point his gun in the direction of the area where a suspect was and that he saw Burge hold something to the suspect’s face. McDermott was an unhappy witness, who said he feared being charged with perjury and obstruction of justice if he did not recall details of the 1985 incident as the prosecution wanted him to.
McDermott’s testimony was inconsistent with his grand jury testimony.
“He changed his statement, but he never said no, there was no brutality,” Dollinger said. “[Burge] still pointed a gun and something plastic over his face.”
“All people who care about justice had a major victory today,” said Flint Taylor, an attorney for many of Burge’s accusers.
Burge attorney Bill Gamboney said he was “very disappointed and somewhat surprised” by the verdict.
“We’re starting to muster our resources together for a motion for a new trial and ultimately an appeal if it comes to that,” Gamboney said.
Burge supporter Jim Knightly, a retired Chicago police captain, vented his disappointment with the verdict.
“That they would take the word of convicted felons over a highly-decorated police officer,” Knightly said. “I’m sure Flint Taylor, the liberal attorney who has been hounding him for years, is happy. I hope he can sleep at night.”
“I’m glad it’s over,” said Ald. Ed Smith (28th), who sat through much of the trial. “This has been a great concern for a lot of people. It’s a case that has caused a black eye on the city.”
Smith said that the verdict should open the door for the release of Burge accusers who are currently imprisoned.
More than 100 people have accused Burge and officers under his command of torturing them during the 1970’s and 1980’s. The men said they were electroshocked, suffocated with plastic bags, subjected to mock executions, beaten and burned. The allegations contributed to the decision to place a moratorium on executions in Illinois, and Chicago agreed to a nearly $20 million settlement to four men who were pardoned.
Prosecutors never filed charges of assault or attempted murder and the statute of limitations has since run out.
Mark Clements, 45, cried in front of reporters in courthouse lobby Monday. He said detectives under Burge pulled on his genitals until he confessed to four murders and an arson. He served 28 years.
“I was 16 years old and these people stole my [expletive] life,” he sobbed. “I hate to tell you the truth. I sat in a prison cell, and I prayed for this day. Today is a victory for every poor person. I was 16 years old. This is America. Sixteen years old. What are we gonna do about other people who are sitting in those prisons.”
More than 20 people who claim they were tortured remain incarcerated in Illinois.
U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said the jury’s decision was a measure of justice, and that it was sad that it took until 2010 to reach a criminal court of law.
“What’s clear is that the jury necessarily found that torture occurred in Chicago police stations at Area 2 in the 1980’s and it’s a disgrace that in this city in the 1980’s people could be subjected to abuse and torture ranging from guns to the face, guns in mouths. Suffocating, electric shocks, radiator burns and that sort of thing.”
“We need to have it on the record that this happened,” Fitzgerald said. “We need to treat it as a fact that it was proved and recognize that it was an awful thing before we can move forward.”
During the past month’s trial, federal prosecutors called four men to the witness stand to testify they were abused in an effort to prove the perjury and obstruction charges. The jury also heard testimony from Andrew Wilson, who died serving a life sentence for the killings of two police officers.
The defense argued that the police torture claims were fabricated by career criminals for the purpose of getting out of jail, and Burge broke years of silence to testify in his own defense, denying each allegation brought against him during the trial. His lawyers played up his dedication to police work — that he often went out on the street with his officers, looked in on interrogations and spent days working without going home on the case of the killings of two police officers. Burge, ill with cancer, broke down crying on the witness stand talking about that investigation.
Burge joined the police department in 1970 and two years later was assigned as an investigator at Area 2, where many of the alleged victims said they were brutalized by police.
A doctor who saw one man’s injuries in 1982 wrote a letter to then-police superintendent Richard Brzeczek asking for an investigation into a case of possible police brutality. Brzeczek forwarded the letter to Mayor Richard M. Daley, then Cook County State’s Attorney, but charges were never brought against any officers.
Daley’s name was not mentioned during the trial.
The Chicago Police Board fired Burge in 1993, three years after a report by the police department’s Office of Professional Standards sustained Wilson’s accusation that Burge abused him and found evidence of systemic abuse at Area Two.
Taylor said men who worked under Burge could still be prosecuted on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. As of May, a grand jury was hearing matters involving detectives who worked under Burge at Area Two in the 1970’s and 1980’s, according to documents filed in the Burge case.
Fitzgerald declined to comment on that investigation.
Judge Joan Lefkow found that eight people could take the Fifth Amendment and not testify in the Burge case. They are former assistant state’s attorney Larry Hyman and retired police officers Michael Hoke, Thomas McKenna, Ronald Boffo, James Pienta, John Paladino, Dave Dioguardi and Leonard Bajenski.
Clements said he will never get back the time he missed with his daughter.
“My daughter is 29 years old,” he said. “I missed all those years with my daughter sitting in a prison cell for a crime I did not commit. I do not feel sorry for Jon Burge. I do not feel sorry for him.”
Fitzgerald: Burge Verdict is a 'Measure of Justice' from Chicago News Cooperative on Vimeo.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Friday, June 18, 2010
Food Vans to Aid Hungry Children
Also from Dateline: Chicago:
By RACHEL CROMIDAS
June 18, 2010
With food stamp enrollment at a record high in Illinois, the Greater Chicago Food Depository is expanding its programs to reach the children of low-income families that struggle the most with hunger in the summer months.
Starting Monday, the first day of summer break for Chicago Public Schools, the depository will send two vans with sandwiches and crackers to community gatherings and Chicago Park District day-camps at lunchtime in Chicago Heights and Little Village/Lawndale–two communities with the highest number of under-served children, according to a recently released report by the depository.
“There are these great enrichment activities in [the Park District],” said Kate Maehr, the executive director of the food depository, “and it is a tragedy that there are kids coming to learn how to dance and play sports and be better readers with empty stomachs.”
As of July 2009, more than 500,000 children in Cook County received subsidized breakfasts and lunches during the school year through federal government-sponsored programs, but the summer meal program for these children run by the United States Department of Agriculture reaches fewer than 30% of children in need, according to Diane Doherty, director of the Illinois Hunger Coalition.
Though more children are needy over summer break, Ms. Doherty is skeptical of the lasting reach of food delivery vans.
“My concern about mobile vans for children is that they pull up, provide [children] with food, and then they leave,” she said.
By RACHEL CROMIDAS
June 18, 2010
With food stamp enrollment at a record high in Illinois, the Greater Chicago Food Depository is expanding its programs to reach the children of low-income families that struggle the most with hunger in the summer months.
Starting Monday, the first day of summer break for Chicago Public Schools, the depository will send two vans with sandwiches and crackers to community gatherings and Chicago Park District day-camps at lunchtime in Chicago Heights and Little Village/Lawndale–two communities with the highest number of under-served children, according to a recently released report by the depository.
“There are these great enrichment activities in [the Park District],” said Kate Maehr, the executive director of the food depository, “and it is a tragedy that there are kids coming to learn how to dance and play sports and be better readers with empty stomachs.”
As of July 2009, more than 500,000 children in Cook County received subsidized breakfasts and lunches during the school year through federal government-sponsored programs, but the summer meal program for these children run by the United States Department of Agriculture reaches fewer than 30% of children in need, according to Diane Doherty, director of the Illinois Hunger Coalition.
Though more children are needy over summer break, Ms. Doherty is skeptical of the lasting reach of food delivery vans.
“My concern about mobile vans for children is that they pull up, provide [children] with food, and then they leave,” she said.
DuPage Struggles to Handle Increased Need for Public Aid
(My latest from the CNC, published in today's New York Times Chicago insert:
By DIRK JOHNSON and RACHEL CROMIDAS
Not far from million-dollar homes in DuPage County, a line of people spills through the doors of a public aid office in Villa Park, now the busiest branch of the Illinois Department of Human Services.
As many as 900 county residents come to the office every day looking for food stamps, emergency financial assistance and vouchers for medical care, said Phyllis Baxter, the site’s administrator.
The surge in suburban poverty reflects the economic collapse for people who had been solidly middle class, including former homeowners with college degrees. It also underscores the changing demographics in some older commuter cities, now home to more Spanish-speaking immigrants and working-class families fleeing tough city neighborhoods. The state’s second-busiest Human Services office is in Blue Island, just south of Chicago in Cook County.
Requests for help at the DuPage County office have soared by about 60 percent in the past five years, Ms. Baxter said. “They come through those doors,” she said, “and they’ll say, ‘I lost my job. I need food. I can’t pay my medical bills.’ ”
The state, which is some $13 billion in debt, has been unable to increase the size of the office’s 81-member staff, which leaves caseworkers scrambling to manage increasing workloads. “The stress level is off the charts,” Ms. Baxter said. “And, remember, plenty of our people have also got somebody in the family who has lost a job.”
Hue Tran has worked as a caseworker in DuPage County for 32 years. She said she had never seen anything like the overwhelming demands of the last two years.
“I just have to work faster,” Ms. Tran said. “The phones are ringing, people are lining up, they’re demanding to know why they’re not getting benefits.”
Ms. Tran and other social workers said many suburbanites, who were living comfortably not long ago, were upset that they now had to beg for help.
“Sometimes they get angry and then they apologize,” said Ms. Tran, who said she had counseled many people who had started crying. “I just tell them: ‘I understand. It’s not your fault.’ ”
Other caseworkers say they feel guilty that they cannot spend enough time on clients. Ebony Martin, 32, said that four years ago, when she came to the DuPage County office, she had a caseload of about 900. Today she has more than 2,300 cases.
“I made a color-coded chart that tells me these are the people that I must — absolutely must — get to today,” Ms. Martin said.
Kara Murphy, the executive director of Access DuPage, a nonprofit group that helps uninsured people find health care, said enrollment in the program had jumped 55 percent in the last two years, to about 11,600.
The sharp increase in the need for services has strained the social infrastructure in suburban areas like DuPage County, which for a long time served chiefly as bedroom communities for prosperous commuters and their families. DuPage County, which has nearly one million residents, is the region’s second-most-populous county, after Cook. It has the area’s highest median household income, more than $73,000, according to a 2007 report by the Heartland Alliance. The unemployment rate has grown to nearly 9 percent in 2010, nearly triple the rate of the early 1990s, according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Services for the working poor and the jobless can be scarce in the suburbs. Candace King, executive director of the DuPage Federation on Human Services Reform, said cities provided more programs to address poverty, like health clinics and food pantries. Housing costs tend to be higher in the suburbs, Ms. King said, and it can be difficult to rely on the smaller mass transit system.
“It is far better to be poor in Chicago than poor in DuPage,” she said.
Human Services officials say the 60 percent growth in caseload in DuPage County in five years has far outpaced the statewide increase of about 20 percent.
At a time when the suburbs have an increased need for programs for the poor, Ms. King said the state was so broke it could not afford to offer new services in places like DuPage County. “We’re trying desperately to keep the ones that are here alive,” she said.
Ms. King estimated that 15 percent of the county’s families earned less than $44,000 but more than the federal poverty level of $22,000. She said it is within that earnings range where aid organizations see families struggle. These people have “too much to get help, but not enough to get by,” she said.
Despite the dearth of social programs in DuPage County, many poor people have been leaving the city for the suburbs, according to demographers like Kenneth Johnson, a former Loyola University sociologist now at the University of New Hampshire. In many cases, parents of small children say they left Chicago to flee gangs.
LaTanya Chase, 28, grew up on the South Side of Chicago, but moved to the Austin neighborhood before settling in Glendale Heights four years ago. Ms. Chase, who works 24 to 30 hours a week at a CVS drugstore, learned quickly that she could not depend on suburban mass transit and would need a car.
But it was still worth moving to the suburbs, she said, because she does not have to worry about her 8-year-old daughter being caught in gang cross-fire while playing in the front yard.
“I’m here because I was looking for a better place for a child to grow up,” said Ms. Chase, who goes to the Villa Park office for food stamps and a health-care voucher. “It’s as simple as that.”
The growing racial and ethnic diversity in DuPage County are changing the clichés about white havens for the country-club set. Census Bureau figures show particularly strong growth among Hispanics, about 12 percent of the county’s population in 2008, up from 9 percent in 2000.
Officials at the Human Services office in Villa Park say its caseload of people who speak Spanish as a primary language has doubled, to about 15,000, over the past five years.
Joshua Drucker, a professor of urban planning at the University of Illinois-Chicago, said the collapse of the home-building industry has hit Hispanics especially hard. Many Hispanic men do drywall and roofing work. Those jobs, Mr. Drucker said, which paid relatively well, have largely evaporated in the last two to three years.
The collapse of housing jobs sent Graciela Martinez, 37, to the Human Services waiting room with her four young children to receive food stamps. Much of the talking for the family was done by her oldest child, Amel — “I’m almost 8” — who wore a University of Wisconsin T-shirt and said he wanted to be a doctor.
Ms. Martinez said her fiancé, the father of the children, was a roofer whose work hours had shrunk to almost nothing. It became impossible to pay the rent, she said, so the family moved in with her sister in suburban West Chicago, an old railroad town with perhaps the longest-standing Mexican-American community in DuPage County.
One recent day at the Human Services office, people stood at the back of the long line on an asphalt parking lot that was baking in the sun. Later, when the skies darkened and the heavens opened, some people pushed inside to keep dry; others simply stood in the rain.
Ms. Baxter, the administrator, said the sense of despair among the clients could be heartbreaking.
“We’ve got to be able to give them some hope,” said Ms. Baxter, who sat behind a beige metal desk piled high with case forms. On the bulletin board, she had pinned the phrase, “Thy will, not mine, be done.”
“You see a lot of shame and embarrassment,” she said. “You see it with people who used to have money and now they’re maybe losing everything. And you see the shame in people who have always been dirt poor, too.”
She said she told caseworkers to give people time to work through their emotions. “I know we’re in a hurry,” she said, “but we’ve got to give them time to talk it out.”
She shook her head and lifted her eyes.
“Because they’re hurting,” she said. “And they’re so scared.”
By DIRK JOHNSON and RACHEL CROMIDAS
Not far from million-dollar homes in DuPage County, a line of people spills through the doors of a public aid office in Villa Park, now the busiest branch of the Illinois Department of Human Services.
As many as 900 county residents come to the office every day looking for food stamps, emergency financial assistance and vouchers for medical care, said Phyllis Baxter, the site’s administrator.
The surge in suburban poverty reflects the economic collapse for people who had been solidly middle class, including former homeowners with college degrees. It also underscores the changing demographics in some older commuter cities, now home to more Spanish-speaking immigrants and working-class families fleeing tough city neighborhoods. The state’s second-busiest Human Services office is in Blue Island, just south of Chicago in Cook County.
Requests for help at the DuPage County office have soared by about 60 percent in the past five years, Ms. Baxter said. “They come through those doors,” she said, “and they’ll say, ‘I lost my job. I need food. I can’t pay my medical bills.’ ”
The state, which is some $13 billion in debt, has been unable to increase the size of the office’s 81-member staff, which leaves caseworkers scrambling to manage increasing workloads. “The stress level is off the charts,” Ms. Baxter said. “And, remember, plenty of our people have also got somebody in the family who has lost a job.”
Hue Tran has worked as a caseworker in DuPage County for 32 years. She said she had never seen anything like the overwhelming demands of the last two years.
“I just have to work faster,” Ms. Tran said. “The phones are ringing, people are lining up, they’re demanding to know why they’re not getting benefits.”
Ms. Tran and other social workers said many suburbanites, who were living comfortably not long ago, were upset that they now had to beg for help.
“Sometimes they get angry and then they apologize,” said Ms. Tran, who said she had counseled many people who had started crying. “I just tell them: ‘I understand. It’s not your fault.’ ”
Other caseworkers say they feel guilty that they cannot spend enough time on clients. Ebony Martin, 32, said that four years ago, when she came to the DuPage County office, she had a caseload of about 900. Today she has more than 2,300 cases.
“I made a color-coded chart that tells me these are the people that I must — absolutely must — get to today,” Ms. Martin said.
Kara Murphy, the executive director of Access DuPage, a nonprofit group that helps uninsured people find health care, said enrollment in the program had jumped 55 percent in the last two years, to about 11,600.
The sharp increase in the need for services has strained the social infrastructure in suburban areas like DuPage County, which for a long time served chiefly as bedroom communities for prosperous commuters and their families. DuPage County, which has nearly one million residents, is the region’s second-most-populous county, after Cook. It has the area’s highest median household income, more than $73,000, according to a 2007 report by the Heartland Alliance. The unemployment rate has grown to nearly 9 percent in 2010, nearly triple the rate of the early 1990s, according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Services for the working poor and the jobless can be scarce in the suburbs. Candace King, executive director of the DuPage Federation on Human Services Reform, said cities provided more programs to address poverty, like health clinics and food pantries. Housing costs tend to be higher in the suburbs, Ms. King said, and it can be difficult to rely on the smaller mass transit system.
“It is far better to be poor in Chicago than poor in DuPage,” she said.
Human Services officials say the 60 percent growth in caseload in DuPage County in five years has far outpaced the statewide increase of about 20 percent.
At a time when the suburbs have an increased need for programs for the poor, Ms. King said the state was so broke it could not afford to offer new services in places like DuPage County. “We’re trying desperately to keep the ones that are here alive,” she said.
Ms. King estimated that 15 percent of the county’s families earned less than $44,000 but more than the federal poverty level of $22,000. She said it is within that earnings range where aid organizations see families struggle. These people have “too much to get help, but not enough to get by,” she said.
Despite the dearth of social programs in DuPage County, many poor people have been leaving the city for the suburbs, according to demographers like Kenneth Johnson, a former Loyola University sociologist now at the University of New Hampshire. In many cases, parents of small children say they left Chicago to flee gangs.
LaTanya Chase, 28, grew up on the South Side of Chicago, but moved to the Austin neighborhood before settling in Glendale Heights four years ago. Ms. Chase, who works 24 to 30 hours a week at a CVS drugstore, learned quickly that she could not depend on suburban mass transit and would need a car.
But it was still worth moving to the suburbs, she said, because she does not have to worry about her 8-year-old daughter being caught in gang cross-fire while playing in the front yard.
“I’m here because I was looking for a better place for a child to grow up,” said Ms. Chase, who goes to the Villa Park office for food stamps and a health-care voucher. “It’s as simple as that.”
The growing racial and ethnic diversity in DuPage County are changing the clichés about white havens for the country-club set. Census Bureau figures show particularly strong growth among Hispanics, about 12 percent of the county’s population in 2008, up from 9 percent in 2000.
Officials at the Human Services office in Villa Park say its caseload of people who speak Spanish as a primary language has doubled, to about 15,000, over the past five years.
Joshua Drucker, a professor of urban planning at the University of Illinois-Chicago, said the collapse of the home-building industry has hit Hispanics especially hard. Many Hispanic men do drywall and roofing work. Those jobs, Mr. Drucker said, which paid relatively well, have largely evaporated in the last two to three years.
The collapse of housing jobs sent Graciela Martinez, 37, to the Human Services waiting room with her four young children to receive food stamps. Much of the talking for the family was done by her oldest child, Amel — “I’m almost 8” — who wore a University of Wisconsin T-shirt and said he wanted to be a doctor.
Ms. Martinez said her fiancé, the father of the children, was a roofer whose work hours had shrunk to almost nothing. It became impossible to pay the rent, she said, so the family moved in with her sister in suburban West Chicago, an old railroad town with perhaps the longest-standing Mexican-American community in DuPage County.
One recent day at the Human Services office, people stood at the back of the long line on an asphalt parking lot that was baking in the sun. Later, when the skies darkened and the heavens opened, some people pushed inside to keep dry; others simply stood in the rain.
Ms. Baxter, the administrator, said the sense of despair among the clients could be heartbreaking.
“We’ve got to be able to give them some hope,” said Ms. Baxter, who sat behind a beige metal desk piled high with case forms. On the bulletin board, she had pinned the phrase, “Thy will, not mine, be done.”
“You see a lot of shame and embarrassment,” she said. “You see it with people who used to have money and now they’re maybe losing everything. And you see the shame in people who have always been dirt poor, too.”
She said she told caseworkers to give people time to work through their emotions. “I know we’re in a hurry,” she said, “but we’ve got to give them time to talk it out.”
She shook her head and lifted her eyes.
“Because they’re hurting,” she said. “And they’re so scared.”
Jon Burge to Take the Stand
This story came from the Chicago News Cooperative blog, Dateline: Chicago. I spent the day in court filling in for my co-worker, Katie Fretland. Early next week I will try to attend and cover the trial's verdict.
By RACHEL CROMIDAS
June 16, 2010
An attorney investigating allegations of police torture under former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge gave testimony Wednesday that contradicts earlier statements from a Cook County Commissioner. The defense plans to call Burge to the stand Thursday.
Attorney Thomas J. Reed testified that Commissioner Larry Suffredin did not recall any abuse allegations when the two spoke in 2005. Suffredin, who was the public defender for alleged torture victim Anthony Holmes, testified earlier in the trial that Holmes told him he had been tortured.
“Mr. Suffredin told me he could not recall any allegations of abuse,” made by Anthony Holmes, Reed testified. Reed said that Holmes’ other former lawyer, William Murphy, did not recall any allegations of abuse during their interview. Reed did not keep any notes from the interviews.
On May 27, Suffredin testified that Holmes, a former high-ranking member of the Black Gangster Disciples, told him through sobs that he had been shocked with electricity and smothered with a plastic bag by Area 2 police trying to force a murder confession in 1973. Suffredin did not file a motion to suppress Holmes’ confession in the original case.
Reed interviewed Suffredin and Murphy as part of a special prosecutor’s investigation into claims of police torture, abuse and brutality under Burge’s watch from 1971 to 1983 Area 2.
The defense brought in two expert witnesses to address allegations that Andrew Wilson, convicted of killing two Area 2 police officers in February of 1982, was electrocuted and burned by a radiator in an Area 2 office while in custody.
Timothy Powell, an operating engineer for the City of Chicago, said the radiators on the second floor of the Burnside Community Center at 9059 S. Cottage Grove, which was once the Area 2 offices, are 2.5 inches apart. The marks on Wilson’s chest were closer together.
Michael Baden, a New York-based physician, forensic pathologist and medical examiner who was paid close to $27,000 to be an expert witness at the trial, said the marks on Wilson’s chest and face featured in the government’s photographic evidence could not have been caused by the radiator. The chest marks were too close together, too old and already scarring by the time the pictures were taken to have been caused within the previous three days, he said.
However, Baden did agree that the injury on Wilson’s thigh was a 2nd degree burn and could have been caused by contact with a radiator, even through the fabric of Wilson’s pants. Baden also agreed that Wilson’s ears exhibited puncture wounds that may have been caused be an alligator clip, but that it was not likely that the alligator clips had been electrified. “There would be burns on his ears,” he said.
Prosecuter David Weisman then had an alligator clip placed on his ear to demonstrate that such clips could stick to part of an individual ear without additional support after Baden speculated that it could not. Just “don’t hook it up to an electrical current,” Baden joked.
A Cook County State’s Attorney who took a homicide confession from an alleged police torture vicitim testified Wednesday that the man said he was treated well by police.
On October 30, 1983, shortly before 2 a.m., Dean Bastounes, now an attorney in private practice in Chicago, answered a police call to Area 2 to take a confession from Gregory Banks, who had been in custody since Oct. 28. (Police are allowed to hold a suspect in custody without charges for a maximum of 72 hours.) Banks testified earlier in the trial that he was tortured by Area 2 police.
“I asked him how he’d been treated by the police. Have you been treated well? ‘Yeah, I been treated well,’ he said.” Banks also said he was given coffee, according to Bastounes.
Bastounes then called a court reporter, Michael Hartman, to record Banks’ statements. According to the court report, which Bastounes read for the jury, Banks told him and Hartman that before the shooting happened, “We was gonna commit a robbery.” He and an accomplice crouched in bushes before Banks jumped a number of passersby and fired his gun. He then ran to 56 West 95th St. and hid the gun on the roof of the building. According to the report, Banks revealed where the gun was hidden to police officers when he was arrested. He told Hartman and Bastounes that he was not forced, coerced, or bribed by police officers to obtain his confession.
When asked if he trusted what the police officers had told him about the crime, Bastounes said his policy is, “Trust but verify. If the police told me something I couldn’t substantiate,” he said, he would ask for more evidence. Bastounes said he did not ask to see the gun or fingerprints as evidence in Banks’ case.
“I think it was fair to say that we [state’s attorneys in the felony review unit] would trust the police,” he said. Bastounes said he never “felt the need” to speak to Banks privately during the interview, and noticed nothing remarkable about Banks’ demeanor during the interview. Banks’ arms, back and legs were covered by a long sleeve shirt and pants.
“I guess common sense would tell me that if someone had been beaten I would tell them they had the right to remain silent. Maybe someone would blurt out ‘I’ve been beaten!’, maybe they wouldn’t.” Bastounes said no one had ever suggested to him that they had been the subject of police abuse.
The second witness of the day, Kathleen Warnick, who also worked as an Assistant States Attorney in the early 1980s’, testified that she visited Area 2 on Feb. 14, 1982 to assist her supervisors in obtaining a court reports on the shooting of two police officers. Warnick denied witnessing any violent acts or screams of horror while in Area 2. She said didn’t see Andrew Wilson or Jackie Wilson being taken out of the building.
Katie Fretland contributed reporting
By RACHEL CROMIDAS
June 16, 2010
An attorney investigating allegations of police torture under former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge gave testimony Wednesday that contradicts earlier statements from a Cook County Commissioner. The defense plans to call Burge to the stand Thursday.
Attorney Thomas J. Reed testified that Commissioner Larry Suffredin did not recall any abuse allegations when the two spoke in 2005. Suffredin, who was the public defender for alleged torture victim Anthony Holmes, testified earlier in the trial that Holmes told him he had been tortured.
“Mr. Suffredin told me he could not recall any allegations of abuse,” made by Anthony Holmes, Reed testified. Reed said that Holmes’ other former lawyer, William Murphy, did not recall any allegations of abuse during their interview. Reed did not keep any notes from the interviews.
On May 27, Suffredin testified that Holmes, a former high-ranking member of the Black Gangster Disciples, told him through sobs that he had been shocked with electricity and smothered with a plastic bag by Area 2 police trying to force a murder confession in 1973. Suffredin did not file a motion to suppress Holmes’ confession in the original case.
Reed interviewed Suffredin and Murphy as part of a special prosecutor’s investigation into claims of police torture, abuse and brutality under Burge’s watch from 1971 to 1983 Area 2.
The defense brought in two expert witnesses to address allegations that Andrew Wilson, convicted of killing two Area 2 police officers in February of 1982, was electrocuted and burned by a radiator in an Area 2 office while in custody.
Timothy Powell, an operating engineer for the City of Chicago, said the radiators on the second floor of the Burnside Community Center at 9059 S. Cottage Grove, which was once the Area 2 offices, are 2.5 inches apart. The marks on Wilson’s chest were closer together.
Michael Baden, a New York-based physician, forensic pathologist and medical examiner who was paid close to $27,000 to be an expert witness at the trial, said the marks on Wilson’s chest and face featured in the government’s photographic evidence could not have been caused by the radiator. The chest marks were too close together, too old and already scarring by the time the pictures were taken to have been caused within the previous three days, he said.
However, Baden did agree that the injury on Wilson’s thigh was a 2nd degree burn and could have been caused by contact with a radiator, even through the fabric of Wilson’s pants. Baden also agreed that Wilson’s ears exhibited puncture wounds that may have been caused be an alligator clip, but that it was not likely that the alligator clips had been electrified. “There would be burns on his ears,” he said.
Prosecuter David Weisman then had an alligator clip placed on his ear to demonstrate that such clips could stick to part of an individual ear without additional support after Baden speculated that it could not. Just “don’t hook it up to an electrical current,” Baden joked.
A Cook County State’s Attorney who took a homicide confession from an alleged police torture vicitim testified Wednesday that the man said he was treated well by police.
On October 30, 1983, shortly before 2 a.m., Dean Bastounes, now an attorney in private practice in Chicago, answered a police call to Area 2 to take a confession from Gregory Banks, who had been in custody since Oct. 28. (Police are allowed to hold a suspect in custody without charges for a maximum of 72 hours.) Banks testified earlier in the trial that he was tortured by Area 2 police.
“I asked him how he’d been treated by the police. Have you been treated well? ‘Yeah, I been treated well,’ he said.” Banks also said he was given coffee, according to Bastounes.
Bastounes then called a court reporter, Michael Hartman, to record Banks’ statements. According to the court report, which Bastounes read for the jury, Banks told him and Hartman that before the shooting happened, “We was gonna commit a robbery.” He and an accomplice crouched in bushes before Banks jumped a number of passersby and fired his gun. He then ran to 56 West 95th St. and hid the gun on the roof of the building. According to the report, Banks revealed where the gun was hidden to police officers when he was arrested. He told Hartman and Bastounes that he was not forced, coerced, or bribed by police officers to obtain his confession.
When asked if he trusted what the police officers had told him about the crime, Bastounes said his policy is, “Trust but verify. If the police told me something I couldn’t substantiate,” he said, he would ask for more evidence. Bastounes said he did not ask to see the gun or fingerprints as evidence in Banks’ case.
“I think it was fair to say that we [state’s attorneys in the felony review unit] would trust the police,” he said. Bastounes said he never “felt the need” to speak to Banks privately during the interview, and noticed nothing remarkable about Banks’ demeanor during the interview. Banks’ arms, back and legs were covered by a long sleeve shirt and pants.
“I guess common sense would tell me that if someone had been beaten I would tell them they had the right to remain silent. Maybe someone would blurt out ‘I’ve been beaten!’, maybe they wouldn’t.” Bastounes said no one had ever suggested to him that they had been the subject of police abuse.
The second witness of the day, Kathleen Warnick, who also worked as an Assistant States Attorney in the early 1980s’, testified that she visited Area 2 on Feb. 14, 1982 to assist her supervisors in obtaining a court reports on the shooting of two police officers. Warnick denied witnessing any violent acts or screams of horror while in Area 2. She said didn’t see Andrew Wilson or Jackie Wilson being taken out of the building.
Katie Fretland contributed reporting
Friday, June 11, 2010
Building Bridges (From the College Site)
My latest story up on the College site:
Second-year Caitlyn Kearney knows the challenges of town-gown relations firsthand. As one of the founding administrative coordinators for the Woodlawn Collaborative (WLC), a burgeoning community center located inside Woodlawn’s First Presbyterian Church, Kearney works to expand University of Chicago students’ roles in neighboring communities.
This is the mission of WLC, a center where activist and public service groups from inside and outside the University community can come together. The organization is three years in the making, according to Wallace Goode, director of the University Community Service Center.
“WLC has brought the church a whole new level of life and energy because it fills a space that used to be fairly empty,” Goode said. The church’s building “was sorely under-used. They once had a food pantry and a pre-school with over a hundred kids enrolled in it.”
Goode expects the student leaders behind Woodlawn Collaborative to help restore that vitality to a neighborhood that suffers from a lack of retail outlets and community spaces.
“Imagine Art in Action on steroids,” said Goode, referring to the annual spring block party run by members of the South Side Solidarity Network. “That’s what WLC could be, but it is much more challenging to sustain activity in that space year-round.”
So far, WLC hosts an Open Mic Series that runs on the third Friday of every month, a Print Studio, and several youth programs, including a free music school led by second-year Noah Moskowitz. In addition to planning regular events and classes in the church, WLC’s student leaders are in charge of the minutiae of running a community center, from securing funding and insurance to ensuring safety in the space.
“This is a project that really represents students trying to be truly appreciative of our neighboring communities,” Kearney said. “We don’t have all the answers, but there’s a lot that both [the University and Woodlawn residents] can bring to the table.”
On a more personal level, “this is the most educational, real-world experience I’ve received [at the University],” she added. “It gives me so much confidence to work on this project and see things start to come together. And at the same time I’m getting out of the U. of C. bubble.”
Kearney has been tutoring elementary school students in the Woodlawn community since her first year. She joined WLC out of a desire to make her relationship with the neighborhood more than a string of one-time commitments.
Third-year Cat Greim echoed Kearney’s enthusiasm about branching out from typical on-campus activities, especially in the face of historic University-Woodlawn tensions.
“I love getting to work with some people who live in Woodlawn in a really collaborative way. I think WLC has been different because it is in our mission and goal to be that way.”
Maya Elliott, a member of WLC and a Woodlawn resident for the past four years, says that getting to know the University students has been one of the highlights of working with WLC. Elliott said students bring a fresh eye to community issues, but that there is still much to learn about what is important to the neighborhood.
“We all come from such different backgrounds and different perspectives on things, so it’s always good to get their perspective, and for them to hear ours, too,” she said.
Second-year Caitlyn Kearney knows the challenges of town-gown relations firsthand. As one of the founding administrative coordinators for the Woodlawn Collaborative (WLC), a burgeoning community center located inside Woodlawn’s First Presbyterian Church, Kearney works to expand University of Chicago students’ roles in neighboring communities.
This is the mission of WLC, a center where activist and public service groups from inside and outside the University community can come together. The organization is three years in the making, according to Wallace Goode, director of the University Community Service Center.
“WLC has brought the church a whole new level of life and energy because it fills a space that used to be fairly empty,” Goode said. The church’s building “was sorely under-used. They once had a food pantry and a pre-school with over a hundred kids enrolled in it.”
Goode expects the student leaders behind Woodlawn Collaborative to help restore that vitality to a neighborhood that suffers from a lack of retail outlets and community spaces.
“Imagine Art in Action on steroids,” said Goode, referring to the annual spring block party run by members of the South Side Solidarity Network. “That’s what WLC could be, but it is much more challenging to sustain activity in that space year-round.”
So far, WLC hosts an Open Mic Series that runs on the third Friday of every month, a Print Studio, and several youth programs, including a free music school led by second-year Noah Moskowitz. In addition to planning regular events and classes in the church, WLC’s student leaders are in charge of the minutiae of running a community center, from securing funding and insurance to ensuring safety in the space.
“This is a project that really represents students trying to be truly appreciative of our neighboring communities,” Kearney said. “We don’t have all the answers, but there’s a lot that both [the University and Woodlawn residents] can bring to the table.”
On a more personal level, “this is the most educational, real-world experience I’ve received [at the University],” she added. “It gives me so much confidence to work on this project and see things start to come together. And at the same time I’m getting out of the U. of C. bubble.”
Kearney has been tutoring elementary school students in the Woodlawn community since her first year. She joined WLC out of a desire to make her relationship with the neighborhood more than a string of one-time commitments.
Third-year Cat Greim echoed Kearney’s enthusiasm about branching out from typical on-campus activities, especially in the face of historic University-Woodlawn tensions.
“I love getting to work with some people who live in Woodlawn in a really collaborative way. I think WLC has been different because it is in our mission and goal to be that way.”
Maya Elliott, a member of WLC and a Woodlawn resident for the past four years, says that getting to know the University students has been one of the highlights of working with WLC. Elliott said students bring a fresh eye to community issues, but that there is still much to learn about what is important to the neighborhood.
“We all come from such different backgrounds and different perspectives on things, so it’s always good to get their perspective, and for them to hear ours, too,” she said.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Collegiate Scholars provides ‘college inspiration’
Another article of mine, this time from the University of Chicago News Office:
When first-year Fabiola Salazar started classes at the University of Chicago, she had already attended Humanities classes in Cobb Hall and science labs in the Biological Sciences Learning Center—and she knew her way around her dormitory like a returning student.
In a sense, she already was one; Salazar’s introduction to the campus came four years ago, when she enrolled in Collegiate Scholars—a University program that places high-achieving Chicago Public School students in summer classes with University professors on subjects ranging from hip-hop music to the Illinois political system, in addition to internships and college application workshops.
Inspired by College Life
Salazar said being exposed to college life as a sophomore in high school, while spending part of the summer in the Max Palevsky dormitory alongside college students, inspired her to make ambitious goals for her college career, including applying to the University. Now she is an economics major, and plans to pursue an MBA.
Salazar also arrived on campus with a friend: fourth-year Roderick Baker, who also graduated from the Collegiate Scholars Program.
“Being on campus and away from home is overwhelming,” Salazar said, “So for me Roderick was the helping hand that guided me through the ins and outs of the University. He’s teaching me what he wishes someone had told him as a first-year.”
Mentoring Relationships
Collegiate Scholars prides itself on the mentoring relationships that develop between alumni at colleges around the country, according to Kim Ransom, the program’s founding director.
“We’re able to create a community of diverse students who love learning that crosses racial, social, and economical lines.”
Ransom said the program, which fields nearly 700 applicants for 45 spots each year, is unique in its ability to connect these students with distinguished University professors like Paul Sally Jr. and Herman Sinaiko.
Top-College Bound
Collegiate Scholars “really gets students thinking, I’m not just going to a college, but to a top college, because I’m a top student,” Baker, a political sciences major, said.
Omar Mesina, a senior at Whitney Young Magnet High School, said he made sure to take as many science classes as possible while on campus.
“I want to go to medical school in the future, or pursue bio-chemistry—Collegiate Scholars as definitely allowed me to expand on that,” he said. Mesina took summer courses in chemistry and biology, and last summer studied Nutritional Science alongside University students in summer school.
“Collegiate Scholars really allowed me to take sciences beyond the scope of what was offered to me at my school,” he added. He expects this preparation will serve him well when he begins attending Harvard University in the fall.
David Williams, a senior at the University of Chicago Charter School in Woodlawn, said the value of the program extends far beyond campus, from an East Coast college tour to cultural outings to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He plans to study Philosophy and Psychology at Carleton College.
Williams, who attended the programs first-ever college tour, said the experience was unmatchable. “We went to New York and saw Hairspray [the musical]. We went to Time Square. It was ridiculous.”
When first-year Fabiola Salazar started classes at the University of Chicago, she had already attended Humanities classes in Cobb Hall and science labs in the Biological Sciences Learning Center—and she knew her way around her dormitory like a returning student.
In a sense, she already was one; Salazar’s introduction to the campus came four years ago, when she enrolled in Collegiate Scholars—a University program that places high-achieving Chicago Public School students in summer classes with University professors on subjects ranging from hip-hop music to the Illinois political system, in addition to internships and college application workshops.
Inspired by College Life
Salazar said being exposed to college life as a sophomore in high school, while spending part of the summer in the Max Palevsky dormitory alongside college students, inspired her to make ambitious goals for her college career, including applying to the University. Now she is an economics major, and plans to pursue an MBA.
Salazar also arrived on campus with a friend: fourth-year Roderick Baker, who also graduated from the Collegiate Scholars Program.
“Being on campus and away from home is overwhelming,” Salazar said, “So for me Roderick was the helping hand that guided me through the ins and outs of the University. He’s teaching me what he wishes someone had told him as a first-year.”
Mentoring Relationships
Collegiate Scholars prides itself on the mentoring relationships that develop between alumni at colleges around the country, according to Kim Ransom, the program’s founding director.
“We’re able to create a community of diverse students who love learning that crosses racial, social, and economical lines.”
Ransom said the program, which fields nearly 700 applicants for 45 spots each year, is unique in its ability to connect these students with distinguished University professors like Paul Sally Jr. and Herman Sinaiko.
Top-College Bound
Collegiate Scholars “really gets students thinking, I’m not just going to a college, but to a top college, because I’m a top student,” Baker, a political sciences major, said.
Omar Mesina, a senior at Whitney Young Magnet High School, said he made sure to take as many science classes as possible while on campus.
“I want to go to medical school in the future, or pursue bio-chemistry—Collegiate Scholars as definitely allowed me to expand on that,” he said. Mesina took summer courses in chemistry and biology, and last summer studied Nutritional Science alongside University students in summer school.
“Collegiate Scholars really allowed me to take sciences beyond the scope of what was offered to me at my school,” he added. He expects this preparation will serve him well when he begins attending Harvard University in the fall.
David Williams, a senior at the University of Chicago Charter School in Woodlawn, said the value of the program extends far beyond campus, from an East Coast college tour to cultural outings to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He plans to study Philosophy and Psychology at Carleton College.
Williams, who attended the programs first-ever college tour, said the experience was unmatchable. “We went to New York and saw Hairspray [the musical]. We went to Time Square. It was ridiculous.”
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
A Fresh Oasis Thrives in a Chicago Food Desert
My latest article at the Chicago News Cooperative, published in Sunday's New York Times.
Willie Montgomery and his well-worn Ford Crown Victoria have become an unlikely sign of progress in solving Chicago’s long-standing problem of so-called food deserts.
Mr. Montgomery charges grocery shoppers up to $8 for rides home from the Food 4 Less, a full-service grocery store that opened four years ago in Englewood. He rests on a handicap cart at the front of the store, waiting for cashiers to send him shoppers who traveled there without a car.
Mr. Montgomery, a retiree who will not give his age, said patrons rode with him because they did not want to worry about having their grocery bags stolen on the bus, and because they couldn’t buy what they needed from corner stores closer to home. They live in food deserts, poor areas that are dotted with vacant lots, dollar stores, and liquor marts, but bereft of fresh-food grocers.
“Shopping at a corner store is too expensive,” said Shirley Slatton, a student at nearby Kennedy-King College, who had piled a half-dozen bags of food and toiletries into the trunk of Mr. Montgomery’s car. “And they don’t sell stuff every day, so you have to check the dates on the cans to make sure you get fresh items.”
When food deserts became a public-policy issue five years ago, few retailers had developed big stores in poor neighborhoods. Chad Broughton, a researcher at the University of Chicago, said shoppers felt getting to the stores would take too long and be unsafe. Although a few grocers have opened in city food deserts, it is still common for Chicagoans in some rough neighborhoods to travel several miles to buy produce.
But steady traffic and revenues at the 63,000-square-foot Food 4 Less at 7030 South Ashland Avenue — as well as Mr. Montgomery’s thriving transportation business — are providing city officials and researchers with new clues about how far residents are willing to travel to stores and how much grocery chains are willing to spend to do business in poor neighborhoods.
Food 4 Less’s foray into Englewood also adds a new dimension to the political debate surrounding Wal-Mart’s effort to build a second store within city limits. The giant retailer has submitted proposals for stores in Pullman Park and Chatham on the South Side, but those efforts have been stalled by negotiations with labor unions, which want workers to be paid more than the minimum wage.
Mr. Broughton, a senior lecturer at the university who just released a survey of food access in four South Side neighborhoods, including Englewood, said that the ideal grocery store for food-desert residents is a large, chain supermarket, because such stores can stock fresh food more readily than corner stores, and at lower prices.
“For residents the obvious answer is a big supermarket with inexpensive items and more variety,” he said. If fresh produce does not sell before it rots, he added, “then it’s not profitable, and there isn’t much incentive for corner stores to stock it.”
But some community organizers balk at seeing profits and better-paying jobs leave their neighborhoods.
“To get into the grocery industry is probably one of the hardest things to do,” said LaDonna Redmond, an urban farmer and founder of the Graffiti and Grub restaurant and community center in East Englewood. “Aldi can purchase food and sell it for pennies on the dollar. Myself, if I open a grocery store, I can’t move that kind of volume.”
Ms. Redmond is a proponent of efforts to make fresh food more available, like accepting food stamps at farmers’ markets and providing grants to help corner stores stock fresh produce.
“If we have entrepreneurs from the community working with the community, I think we’d see something a little bit different,” Ms. Redmond said.
As one of only two full-service grocery stores within the nine square miles of greater Englewood — whose borders extend from 55th Street south to 75th Street, and from Western Avenue east to State Street — the Food 4 Less benefits and suffers from doing business in a food and retail desert. The store boasts the third-highest profit margin of the 15 Food 4 Less outlets in the Chicago region, but also has the highest security expenses, said Carrie Cole, the store director.
Englewood is one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. In East Englewood, 43.8 percent of residents live below the federal poverty level, according to the Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission. In West Englewood, 32.1 percent live below the poverty level. The Chicago Police Department ranks East Englewood sixth and West Englewood eighth in robberies among city community areas.
Safety concerns “limit the window in which people can feel comfortable going out and getting food if they don’t have a car,” Mr. Broughton said. “People will re-arrange their work schedules just so that they can have a window during a safe time of day to get food.”
But Ms. Cole said the relative success of the store sends a message that it can pay to develop in Chicago’s low-income communities, which generally suffer most from a lack of fresh-food grocers. The store opened almost four years ago, and was followed by an Aldi store at 76th Street and Western Avenue.
“A lot of these stores do quite well because there’s not a lot of competition,” said Mari Gallagher, a food policy consultant and researcher who wrote a landmark study on Chicago food access in 2006 and a follow-up study in 2009. But the majority of areas labeled as food deserts by Ms. Gallagher’s study do not mirror Englewood’s growth.
“These stores are really important for public health,” Ms. Gallagher said, particularly because residents of communities without green grocers have higher risks of developing heart disease, cancer and kidney failure. “But the grocer has to make a profit, too.” She said the key for the city will be understanding what is going to help make the market place stronger and attract other types of stores.
The Englewood Food 4 Less sees close to 19,000 customers per week, Ms. Cole said, and each spends an average of $30 per visit. Those numbers have remained steady despite the recession. Although the company’s corporate office did not respond to questions about average store traffic in the Chicago area, four other Food 4 Less outlets in various city neighborhoods said they attracted between 16,000 and 20,000 customers a week.
Ms. Cole said that her store had done well because more people shop at discount food marts in hard times. “The recession has done us a lot of justice,” she said. “We’re probably one of the only chains to have seen an increase in sales.”
That is encouraging for the city, which has been financing new programs to increase fresh-food options in food deserts since Ms. Gallagher’s research group released its study on the correlation between residents’ health risks and distance from grocery stores, said Chris Raguso, acting commissioner of Chicago’s Department of Community Development.
The department has been giving grocers “every incentive we possibly can,” she said, to develop in these blighted areas by waiving required commercial inspections and streamlining the process for them to request building permits.
“It’s no secret that it’s an economic issue for grocery stores,” she said, “and it takes a long time to bring these large-scale developments into order.”
Willie Montgomery and his well-worn Ford Crown Victoria have become an unlikely sign of progress in solving Chicago’s long-standing problem of so-called food deserts.
Mr. Montgomery charges grocery shoppers up to $8 for rides home from the Food 4 Less, a full-service grocery store that opened four years ago in Englewood. He rests on a handicap cart at the front of the store, waiting for cashiers to send him shoppers who traveled there without a car.
Mr. Montgomery, a retiree who will not give his age, said patrons rode with him because they did not want to worry about having their grocery bags stolen on the bus, and because they couldn’t buy what they needed from corner stores closer to home. They live in food deserts, poor areas that are dotted with vacant lots, dollar stores, and liquor marts, but bereft of fresh-food grocers.
“Shopping at a corner store is too expensive,” said Shirley Slatton, a student at nearby Kennedy-King College, who had piled a half-dozen bags of food and toiletries into the trunk of Mr. Montgomery’s car. “And they don’t sell stuff every day, so you have to check the dates on the cans to make sure you get fresh items.”
When food deserts became a public-policy issue five years ago, few retailers had developed big stores in poor neighborhoods. Chad Broughton, a researcher at the University of Chicago, said shoppers felt getting to the stores would take too long and be unsafe. Although a few grocers have opened in city food deserts, it is still common for Chicagoans in some rough neighborhoods to travel several miles to buy produce.
But steady traffic and revenues at the 63,000-square-foot Food 4 Less at 7030 South Ashland Avenue — as well as Mr. Montgomery’s thriving transportation business — are providing city officials and researchers with new clues about how far residents are willing to travel to stores and how much grocery chains are willing to spend to do business in poor neighborhoods.
Food 4 Less’s foray into Englewood also adds a new dimension to the political debate surrounding Wal-Mart’s effort to build a second store within city limits. The giant retailer has submitted proposals for stores in Pullman Park and Chatham on the South Side, but those efforts have been stalled by negotiations with labor unions, which want workers to be paid more than the minimum wage.
Mr. Broughton, a senior lecturer at the university who just released a survey of food access in four South Side neighborhoods, including Englewood, said that the ideal grocery store for food-desert residents is a large, chain supermarket, because such stores can stock fresh food more readily than corner stores, and at lower prices.
“For residents the obvious answer is a big supermarket with inexpensive items and more variety,” he said. If fresh produce does not sell before it rots, he added, “then it’s not profitable, and there isn’t much incentive for corner stores to stock it.”
But some community organizers balk at seeing profits and better-paying jobs leave their neighborhoods.
“To get into the grocery industry is probably one of the hardest things to do,” said LaDonna Redmond, an urban farmer and founder of the Graffiti and Grub restaurant and community center in East Englewood. “Aldi can purchase food and sell it for pennies on the dollar. Myself, if I open a grocery store, I can’t move that kind of volume.”
Ms. Redmond is a proponent of efforts to make fresh food more available, like accepting food stamps at farmers’ markets and providing grants to help corner stores stock fresh produce.
“If we have entrepreneurs from the community working with the community, I think we’d see something a little bit different,” Ms. Redmond said.
As one of only two full-service grocery stores within the nine square miles of greater Englewood — whose borders extend from 55th Street south to 75th Street, and from Western Avenue east to State Street — the Food 4 Less benefits and suffers from doing business in a food and retail desert. The store boasts the third-highest profit margin of the 15 Food 4 Less outlets in the Chicago region, but also has the highest security expenses, said Carrie Cole, the store director.
Englewood is one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. In East Englewood, 43.8 percent of residents live below the federal poverty level, according to the Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission. In West Englewood, 32.1 percent live below the poverty level. The Chicago Police Department ranks East Englewood sixth and West Englewood eighth in robberies among city community areas.
Safety concerns “limit the window in which people can feel comfortable going out and getting food if they don’t have a car,” Mr. Broughton said. “People will re-arrange their work schedules just so that they can have a window during a safe time of day to get food.”
But Ms. Cole said the relative success of the store sends a message that it can pay to develop in Chicago’s low-income communities, which generally suffer most from a lack of fresh-food grocers. The store opened almost four years ago, and was followed by an Aldi store at 76th Street and Western Avenue.
“A lot of these stores do quite well because there’s not a lot of competition,” said Mari Gallagher, a food policy consultant and researcher who wrote a landmark study on Chicago food access in 2006 and a follow-up study in 2009. But the majority of areas labeled as food deserts by Ms. Gallagher’s study do not mirror Englewood’s growth.
“These stores are really important for public health,” Ms. Gallagher said, particularly because residents of communities without green grocers have higher risks of developing heart disease, cancer and kidney failure. “But the grocer has to make a profit, too.” She said the key for the city will be understanding what is going to help make the market place stronger and attract other types of stores.
The Englewood Food 4 Less sees close to 19,000 customers per week, Ms. Cole said, and each spends an average of $30 per visit. Those numbers have remained steady despite the recession. Although the company’s corporate office did not respond to questions about average store traffic in the Chicago area, four other Food 4 Less outlets in various city neighborhoods said they attracted between 16,000 and 20,000 customers a week.
Ms. Cole said that her store had done well because more people shop at discount food marts in hard times. “The recession has done us a lot of justice,” she said. “We’re probably one of the only chains to have seen an increase in sales.”
That is encouraging for the city, which has been financing new programs to increase fresh-food options in food deserts since Ms. Gallagher’s research group released its study on the correlation between residents’ health risks and distance from grocery stores, said Chris Raguso, acting commissioner of Chicago’s Department of Community Development.
The department has been giving grocers “every incentive we possibly can,” she said, to develop in these blighted areas by waiving required commercial inspections and streamlining the process for them to request building permits.
“It’s no secret that it’s an economic issue for grocery stores,” she said, “and it takes a long time to bring these large-scale developments into order.”
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