Bashing gangbangers has become a priority of northwest suburban police due to a disturbing increase in the number of the undesirables living in once-quiet northwest suburban villages.
And now local politicians are getting into the act by including in their campaign platforms ways to curb gang activity in their communities.
“I guess it’s a little bit of a shock to some suburbanites who never thought the suburbs would have these problems, and it was just a city problem,” said Mark Thompson, a Maine Township trustee who is running for township supervisor in the April 20 municipal elections.
But gang activity is a suburban problem now, and Thompson is among several local politicians who are promoting ways to fight gang activity as part of their effort to win a leadership role in their communities.
“We need to get a larger number of people involved so we can avoid this creeping problem coming into the suburbs,” said Wendell E. Jones, who is challenging Palatine Village President Rita Mullins in the April election.
“I want to involve schools, park districts, the YMCA, the Police Department, everybody, because we’re not going to solve (the gang problem) if we don’t,” said Jones, who served as Palatine’s village president from 1973 to 1977, when gang activity was something that only happened in Chicago.
Jones, who plans to formally outline his proposals for fighting gangs in the near future, said among his recommendations is one to take a regional approach toward the problem.
“We need all the northwest suburbs and all the northwest townships coming together to attack this problem from the bottom to the top,” Jones said.
Mullins could not be reached for comment Wednesday because she was in Springfield, but as throughout the northwest suburbs, her village has worked closely with the police department to fight gang problems during her administration.
Ironically, much of the campaign talk about gangs comes while the legislature is in the midst of passing some of its own measures to deal with gang activity.
Newly elected Rep. Rosemary Mulligan (R-Des Plaines) and Rep. Terry Parke (R-Hoffman Estates) recently issued news releases to the media describing several anti-gang measures approved by the House and sent to the Senate.
Among the measures was a Parke proposal designed to halt the use of rental residences by gangs and drug lords. Also approved were measures giving school officials more control over attempts to bring weapons into school buildings and tougher sentences for gang-related crimes.
Jones, like many local politicians, said he appreciated Springfield’s efforts but added: “The legislature never got rid of a gang. These are local problems that must be solved by local people.”
In some suburbs, the lack of talk about a “gang problem” is exactly what’s prompting politicians to raise the issue.
Roger Williams, Streamwood’s park district president, listed the “gang problem” as among his three top campaign issues after conducting a poll of 1,200 residents.
Besides streets and schools, the residents also listed gang activity as one of their chief concerns, despite the fact that Village President Billie Roth’s administration has taken a number of steps to fight what she calls a “gang presence.”
“We don’t (believe) Streamwood has a gang `problem,’ but we do have a gang `presence’ and we have `zero tolerance’ as our policy,” Roth said, referring to the Police Department’s program to curb gang activity throughout the community.
Williams, however, said whether it’s called a gang “presence” or a gang “problem,” Streamwood’s existing programs to curb gang activity don’t go far enough. He is challenging Roth along with former deputy police chief Paul Rauscher.
Despite the upsurge in the political rhetoric surrounding gang activity, not every local politician is finding it to be an issue.
In Hanover Park, for instance, two-term incumbent Sonya Crawshaw got a thumbs-up vote from her election opponent when he was asked for a rating on the village’s work to solve the gang problem, which includes holding regular “gang awareness forums.”
And former trustee Frank Dalla Valle said as long as the gang-fighting efforts continue, the problem should remain manageable.
