A Feb. 28 editorial criticized the Chicago Police Department for taking too long to arrest the gang members who terrorized Robert and Amy Castaneda after they reported a gang member to police. Chicago police have arrested six men on felony charges. Those men were charged under the Mireles Law, which increases penalties for crimes committed against community policing volunteers.
A little more than six weeks elapsed between the first incident and those arrests, which was certainly longer than we liked. But enforcing the law against criminal street gang members isn’t always as quick and easy as the experts on the Tribune editorial board might think.
From the time of the first incident on Jan. 6, our officers were in almost daily contact with the Castanedas. Police questioned known gang members in the neighborhood and kept a close eye on the Castaneda home.
But today’s gang members are very organized. They often have police scanners and two-way radios; they’re as well-equipped as the police. We do our best to catch them, but it can take awhile. And we did catch them, after a group gathered in front of the Castaneda home on Feb. 20. They were identified from mug shots the next day.
The Castanedas displayed great courage and deserve great credit for standing up to gang terrorists. They have shown that Chicago’s community policing strategy does work, and they set an example for CAPS volunteers across the city.
Fighting gangs is a difficult and sometimes frightening job, but the alternative is surrender–and that’s even worse.
