No one seems to recall the exact wording of the job notice, but those who eventually landed the positions joke it could have read something like this:
“WANTED: Undercover narcotics agents willing to work long hours, for short pay ($24,000 yearly) in the nation’s poorest, crime-ridden communities. No overtime. No long-term job security. High risk. Confiscate drugs and guns after making hand-to-hand buys on dark, dangerous street corners or in filthy homes. Previous experience helpful but not required.”
Hundreds of Chicago-area applicants responded to the job posting that had been circulated through local village halls and law enforcement agencies.
After the applicants had been tested, weeded-out and trained, the south suburban area had a unique and unorthodox team of drug agents who ranged widely in age, race, sex and work experience.
One used to drive a truck. Another was a courtroom deputy. One was collecting unemployment benefits. Two are former prison guards. One, a recent college graduate, was semipro football player in Canada.
The unit is part of the little-known federally funded program known as the Cook County Sheriff’s Police South Suburban Drug Initiative or SDI.
The federal program is aimed at reversing the “Catch-22” of suburban narcotics enforcement. Basically the wealthy communities are the only ones that can afford to tackle the drug problem head-on. However, it’s the poorest communities that have the biggest drug trafficking and few or no funds or officers to combat the flow.
The group has been operating out of the Markham Courthouse for the past 15 months. In that time its members made more than 279 felony arrests and have accounted for an impressive 89 convictions or guility pleas out of the 91 cases that have gone before judges. The rest of the cases are pending.
Many Chicago suburbs have hooked up to combat drugs by joining the North Eastern Metropolitian Enforcement Group. But to join NE-MEG communities must contribute either cash or manpower.
That’s an enforcement luxury well beyond many cash-strapped towns with barely enough funds for routine street patrols, towns like Harvey, Dixmoor, Robbins, Phoenix, Ford Heights and Markham.
So these six communities have been targeted as the enforcement area of the federally funded program.
The group also nabs Chicago and southwest suburban drug dealers and buyers who venture into the targeted area from more upscale communities such as Flossmoor, Tinley Park and Homewood, said Comdr. Stephen Pamon, who helps oversee the operation.
“The more affluent neighborhoods have a big drug problem, but they don’t tolerate the street-corner drug market, so the users there come to areas such as Robbins to make their buys,” said Pamon, a 16-year veteran with the Chicago Police Department.
The grants for SDI were made available by a congressional appropriation administered by the Justice Department.
The Illinois Criminal Justice Authority, in turn, helped put together the program by compiling statistics to qualify for the funds. The criteria included high crime, unemployment and school dropout rates and the low income for residents.
The Cook County sheriff’s office provided matching funds for the federal money and oversees the 48-month grant program.
According to Jack Nadol, acting director of the Bureau of Justice Assistance in Washington, there are approximately 1,000 multi-jurisdictional drug task forces nationwide funded by this grant program.
However, Robert Taylor with the Illinois Criminal Justice Authority said only a small percentage are like SDI’s.
“This is a very unique program for a lot of reasons,” said Taylor, pointing to all the intergovernmental cooperation it took to make the program work and the visible presence it tries to establish in high-crime areas.
The only other such squad in Illinois is in East St. Louis.
Another thing that makes SDI different is that part of the grant money is funneled to the Cook County state’s attorney’s office to help deal with the increasing number of drug arrests.
This close working relationship partially accounts for the group’s high conviction rate, said James Turney, the deputy director of the unit.
The average age of the arrested suspects is the early 20s, but one child as young as 8 was nabbed for acting as a lookout and possession of crack-cocaine and a couple of suspected dealers arrested were well into their 60s.
Turney said the SDI confiscates mainly crack-cocaine and the animal tranquilizer, PCP, which he suspects is made in a local lab. There are occasional busts for heroin, powder cocaine and the even rarer bust for marijuana.
Turney is a 30-year Chicago Police Department veteran who has specialized in narcotics enforcement for more than 20 years. But it’s a new field for many of his agents.
He said the almost-unheard-of practice of hiring inexperienced narcotics agents was necessary because the lack of job security failed to lure many experienced officers away from their jobs.
All of the agents were rigorously screened-through tests, background checks and five months of grueling training.
“I consider them on par with seasoned veterans that have been on the streets for years,” said Turney. “They went beyond our expectations and surprised us in their adeptness. They have developed that sixth sense of street smarts that allows you to identify the criminal element within a community.”
Because of security reasons the exact number of SDI agents and some identities and background information are kept confidential.
Their reasons for joining the unit, which could disband when the $1.2 million grant runs out in a few years, vary as much as their work experience.
“I was only making $18,000 a year as a courtroom deputy,” said one.
Timothy Williams, a former part-time police officer, said the adrenaline high helped lure him away from his part-time beat patrol.
“I’ve always wanted to be in narcotics,” Williams said.
“It’s a lot more exciting than pushing papers,” said Robert Arrigo who originally was assigned to a desk job in the unit while recovering from being shot in the leg by a fugitive while working for the Cook County sheriff’s police.
“I guess if I got shot again I would think about it some more, but this is really fun,” Arrigo said. “I’ve always wanted to kick in doors, and every day it’s something different.”
“I’d rather put ’em in jail than watch ’em there,” said Andy Remus, a former prison guard who describes himself as the unit’s “dope-sniffer.”
Besides 32 bags of crack cocaine, with a street value of $320, a recent drug bust in a house in Harvey also netted the team one completely loaded Strum-Ruger 357 Magnum revolver, four arrests, four counts of possession with intent to deliver and two counts of delivery of a controlled substance.
Dirty clothes and broken pieces of furniture were scattered about the structure that appeared to be heated only by high flames that shot up from two burners of a stove. There was a menagerie of animals, including several parakeets, a parrot, a ferret and even a miniature pig.
“This is the worst part of it,” said Pamon nodding to some of the small children huddled on the beat-up furniture. “Whole families are affected by these drugs.”
