Television cameras zoom in for tight shots as the mother of a murder victim and Wheeling`s Deputy Police Chief Michael Hermes plead for information from the public about the slaying of exotic dancer Jamie Santos in October 1991.
During the press conference, authorities leave little doubt about the power average citizens have when it comes to solving crimes.
”If you have any information, no matter how insignificant it may seem, please call the Wheeling police,” Santos` mother told reporters.
Fortunately for residents of Wheeling and any one of the northwest suburbs, a homicide is still rare enough to command the public`s attention. Police commonly seek the public`s help when seeking key witnesses in cases as prominent as the Santos murder.
But more often these days, area authorities are saying that help from civilian suburban crimebusters is essential to the investigation of many more crimes than those few that grab the headlines. In fact, the number and activities of citizen crimebuster groups have been increasing as the level of commitment of those groups` members appears to be on the rise, according to police.
Consider Mt. Prospect resident Beverly Cusick. If you visited the Boxwood neighborhood last summer, you might have run into Cusick during a Walk and Talk session she helped organize. Walk and Talks are a way for a handful of concerned residents and a foot-patrol beat officer to meet informally at pre- arranged times, according to Cusick. They provide an excuse to walk through the sometimes uneasy neighborhood and a way to initiate communication.
”In the summer, we would meet with an officer from the 3 to 11 p.m. shift,” she said, ”and walk with maybe four to eight adults for 30 to 45 minutes, introducing ourselves to whomever was around. We encountered everything from kids playing to kids arguing, or people sitting out on their lawns drinking, which the police explained was not acceptable.”
The neighborhood seemed a little wary of the first Walk and Talk, Cusick said, ”but through the summer, people started to talk, and toward the end they were very eager to help, even asking `What can I do or watch out for to make the neighborhood better?` ”
Cusick said her community activism came about for selfish reasons.ast year, when her 8- and 12-year-old children started coming home from school with stories about tense situations among students and some breakdowns among kids along racial or socio-economic lines, ”That`s when PACA stepped in to create a unified effort,” she says.
And PACA, the Positive Action Community Alliance, was the grass-roots community group that Cusick helped roll into action. In addition to the Walk and Talks, Cusick has worked with local officials and church leaders to organize positive activities for junior high school kids. Says Cusick: ”The children are the ones who tell us what they want, and then they help us put it together.”
According to Mt. Prospect Crime Prevention Officer John Wagner, PACA`s work is having a positive effect on the community. Since PACA was brought to life in 1991, Cusick said, her children have been coming home with far fewer of the kinds of stories that prodded her to help begin the program in the first place.
”Helping plan things like PACA is one mission of our Regional Action Planning Project (RAPP),” says RAPP coordinator Russ Hults, who works out of offices in Buffalo Grove.
Founded in June 1990, RAPP has helped youths in eight northwest suburban communities (it operates in high school districts 207, 211 and 214) avoid the deadend of gangs and other anti-social activities through a host of programs and activities. ”We help communities develop groups like PACA and try to link those programs,” said Hults, a gang specialist for 27 years.
RAPP`s funding comes from its participating communities. The group helps school officials identify and deal with potential and confirmed gang members and is designing a program to pull young gang ”wannabees” into more positive directions through special tutorials and supervised recreation programs. Presently, Hults is helping devise ways for judges to provide alternative and potentially more constructive sentences for youths in the area.
”We`re trying to pick up the young people who fall through the cracks of the system, because if we don`t, that`s exactly what a gang will do,” he said.
RAPP`s activities have helped eliminate a collective denial of the gang problem in the northwest suburbs, Hults said, and by increasing the gang awareness quotient of parents and educators, he believes gang proliferation here can be, and has been, slowed or even stopped.
By preventing the causes of crime, projects like PACA and RAPP are clearly valuable to the northwest suburbs, but more traditional programs like Neighborhood Watch groups are also a help by preventing the crimes themselves, said Palatine Crime Prevention Officer Brad Grossman, adding ”Unfortunately, and too often, we`re asked to start Neighborhood Watch groups after crimes have occurred.”
First launched in the 1970s, Neighborhood Watches have since helped countless neighborhoods in the Chicago suburbs and across the U.S. prevent crimes through police seminars and informal community meetings.
”Neighborhood Watch is a way to keep an eye out for your neighbors and also a way to be friendly,” says Pat DiPrima, a mother and resident of Elgin`s Parkwood neighborhood.
As head of a Neighborhood Watch group that includes almost 300 homes, DiPrima helps spread crime prevention tips given out by Elgin police through a community newsletter. Parkwood`s Neighborhood Watch block captains, usually responsible for five to 14 houses, also help unify the neighborhood by keeping dozens of watchful eyes on alert for unusual happenings, she said. But the group is also careful not to pester the police with inconsequential information.
DiPrima`s Neighborhood Watch members have not nabbed any criminals yet, but some of the group`s members, including her husband, may have prevented some crimes by alerting police to suspicious people cruising the neighborhood at odd hours, she said.
Another group called Crimestoppers, meanwhile, has been effective in helping to solve crimes. Local Crimestopper units staff hotlines in many northwest suburban communities and provide rewards to people who supply anonymous tips that lead to arrests.
”We pretty much act as a bird dog and then the police go and try to build a case they can take to court,” said Glenn Turner, president of an active Crimestoppers chapter in Crystal Lake.
Crystal Lake Police Lt. Keith Nygren said Crimestopper leads have cleared crimes in his town ranging from stolen bikes to substantial cases.
”It doesn`t cost the taxpayer anything, and I never realized how valuable it was until we started an undercover drug unit, and now I`d be willing to say that a third to 40 percent of drug cases begin with
Crimestoppers,” Nygren said.
Another group that encourages pro-active community involvement in police work is the Schaumburg-based Alliance Against Intoxicated Motorists (AAIM). That group`s executive director, Paul Froehlich, said AAIM encourages motorists who spot drunken drivers to report offenders to their local police and ask to be considered for an AAIM reward if a drunken driver is arrested. Most local suburban police departments participate, he said.
