ENOUGH IS ENOUGH, MAYWOOD SAYS

With 15 Slayings This Year in the Suburb, Officials and Residents Are Fed
Up and Doing Something About It

Maywood officials and residents measure progress these days by the
number of weeks between homicides, which are at an all-time high in a
community long beset by crime.

A 38-year-old Chicago man was killed in a drive-by shooting a little
more than two weeks ago. Before that, a man was gunned down while
mowing a lawn. And before that, former Acting Police Chief Willard
Jackson was slain during a carjacking.

The grim reality is that 15 people have been killed so far this year
in Maywood, the highest number in the 27 years for which statistics
are available. On average there are five slayings each year in the
west suburb; last year there were 10.

"This is highly unusual for them," said Larry Scott, police chief in
neighboring Broadview. "I've never seen this dramatic amount of
gunplay and shootings."

The community is fighting back, not with anything particularly new,
but by attacking the roots of crime on a number of fronts and trying
to get more people involved in combating the problem.

"That's the first fatality we've had in the last three weeks," Mayor
Ralph Conner told a recently formed crime-fighting task force only
hours after the drive-by shooting. "But it's not going to stop."

There have been non-fatal attacks this year too. On May 1, seven
people, including a 3-year-old, were wounded when a semiautomatic
weapon was fired down a residential street.

Authorities suspect drugs and gangs are behind the homicides and some
of the other incidents. Fighting that isn't easy, said Conner, who is
midway through his first four-year term, but a number of efforts are
under way.

Police have joined forces with Broadview and another neighboring
suburb, Bellwood, on an initiative to target felons who carry or use
weapons. The Village Board is funneling money to neighborhood watch
groups and has expanded its youth work program to include people as
old as 30.

Yet, the job initiative lurched when police officers recognized some
of the youths working in their department and told the mayor to
reassign them for fear they would pick up information and pass it to
local gangs. In another instance, alleged gang members accosted a
youth doing landscaping work for the village.

"He was mowing grass and some rival gang members recognized him and
jumped him before we could break it up," Conner said. "It was just a
testament to the inherent difficulties we have in trying to intervene,
but we have to. It's our goal and our mission."

Maywood, whose motto is "A village on the move today for tomorrow," is
trying to lure industry and hopes to revamp its downtown with a
multimillion-dollar rehabilitation. Meanwhile, the housing market,
which consists predominantly of 19th and early 20th Century
single-family owner-occupied homes, is improving, with average sale
prices jumping from $113,421 in 2002 to $130,003 this year, according
to local Realtor Lester Panek.

But the village of almost 27,000 can't shake the violence. Its 10
slayings last year compared with seven in Cicero with a population of
85,000, and to a like number in Joliet, whose population is four times
greater.

In Maywood, 83 percent of the population is black, the per capita
income is $14,915 and 13.4 percent of residents live below the poverty
level.

Gangs and Drugs

Some people believe the violence is related to an alleged gang war. At
least two slayings appear to be related to domestic disputes, but in
several cases police had prior contact with the victims.

"We have had the problem for quite some time now, but it seems to have
been escalated with the gangs trying to establish turf," Edwenna
Perkins, a village trustee, said.

Police Chief James Collier recently said drugs are the cornerstone of
the crime, and the mayor believes the "narco economy" affects just
about everyone in the village.

"I have people in my family who have been part of this life and are
still tied up in it," Conner acknowledged.

Employee turnover and mismanagement in the village have not helped,
said Village Trustee Gary Woll.

"It certainly could be a factor," he said. "We've had police chiefs
and village managers on a revolving door for 30 years. It certainly
has led to no long-range planning in the Police Department over the
years."

Meanwhile, under the federal Project Safe Neighborhoods, Maywood
police have teamed with Bellwood and Broadview to form a task force
that will focus on crimes committed with guns. The idea is to identify
felons who carry or use weapons and prosecute them under federal laws,
which typically carry stiffer penalties.

"We were concerned because what affects Maywood, of course, affects
the surrounding communities," said Bellwood Police Chief Gregory Moore.

In addition, Maywood police are working with the Illinois attorney
general's office, Illinois State Police and the Illinois Department of
Corrections to randomly conduct drug tests of parolees. That effort
recently led to the arrest of one person on crack cocaine charges and
the return of two parolees to prison.

Village Responds

Village officials have been trying to do their part.

On July 7 the Village Board agreed to spend an additional $75,000 to
expand the summer youth employment program. The money was used to hire
200 youths for such tasks as painting street curbs or accompanying
code enforcement officers on inspections.

The board also voted to give 100 block watch clubs $250 each for
things like new signs or numbers for buildings on an alley to make it
easier for police to know if they are responding to the correct
location, Conner said.

The village also is considering putting surveillance cameras on
streets in high-crime areas, a tactic recently embraced by Chicago
police. And officials have met with church groups and community
leaders to enlist their help.

Even with these efforts, which include declaring an unofficial state
of emergency following the May 1 shooting, it's an uphill battle,
Conner said.

On a recent afternoon he talked to three men who emerged from the
Police Department after being questioned for what they said was a
"misunderstanding about a car." He asked the men if they were employed.

"You got a job?" one replied.

"I might," Conner answered, giving him his phone number and telling
him to call him.

As the men walked away, Conner said, "He's just talking. They won't
call."

But, he added, it's important to try to help.

"My theory is unless we intervene and take some of the people off the
streets and give them an opportunity to come out of their lifestyle,
it's just going to continue to proliferate," he said. "We are not
going to give up."