Drizzt
Member
Chicago Tribune
May 5, 2003 Monday, CHICAGOLAND EDITION
SECTION: Editorial; Pg. 18; ZONE: CN
LENGTH: 1105 words
HEADLINE: Targeting shooters
BODY:
Flanked by 52 sullen murderers, robbers and other parolees convicted of gun crimes, David Hoffman launches into his lecture on some unnerving points of federal law. The parolees, who have been brought together beneath the shimmering golden dome of the Garfield Park Fieldhouse, are a select audience: They and other chronic gun criminals who prowl Chicago's streets are prime reasons why this city boasts America's highest big-city murder rate.
There's cause for urgency. A rush of killings since Easter weekend has startled Chicago. Last week Mayor Richard Daley urged police officials to take more preventive steps. The recent victims include a 12-year-old boy apparently killed in a retaliatory shooting for a bike theft in which he wasn't involved, and a doughnut shop clerk gunned down after he allegedly peeved a customer by putting too much sugar in his coffee.
But Hoffman, a young federal prosecutor, doesn't dwell on the outrages of the moment. He and other members of his Project Safe Neighborhoods team are playing a longer game, trying to change the behavior of gangbangers, drug hustlers and other habitual shooters who, year after year, drive the big homicide numbers here. PSN, a pilot program that pulls together federal, state, county and city agencies, marks its first anniversary May 12. And while it's early for back-pats, this is shaping up as the most aggressive attack on gun violence Chicago ever has seen.
The felons of numerous races and hues who face Hoffman are among the Chicagoans statistically most likely to commit future murders. Yet with career prospects that aren't exactly stellar, they're also starved of chances for better lives.
Remarkably, 4,000 of the Illinois Department of Corrections' 37,000 parolees statewide now crowd into the two West Side police districts, Austin and Harrison, where PSN operates--and where 321 people were murdered in the last three years. That concentration of parolees concerns IDOC, which is why Mary Hodge, the agency's chief of investigations and intelligence, warns the parolees they're now under PSN's intense scrutiny. They need to make good choices and break out of old ways, she says to the 52, who by now are sitting up straighter and appear to understand that they're in PSN's spotlight. Dana Starks, commander of the Harrison police district, adds a sobering context: "There's too many of you dying," he says. "In these districts, the majority of people who commit homicides--or become victims of homicides--are ex-offenders."
Current parolees, and the uncounted thousands of former parolees who live in the same impoverished neighborhoods, are key to whether Chicago's streets become even more drenched with blood. Hoffman, Hodge, Starks and others on the PSN team try to offer parolees a full array of options--to avoid future gun crimes, yes, but also to take advantage of the job-training, drug rehab, education and housing help PSN offers.
This being an especially tough audience, sticks come before those carrots. Hoffman holds forth on a crime known as "being a felon in possession." Several parolees squirm as he explains that merely possessing a firearm entitles any ex-convict in the room to spend a minimum of 15 years in a federal penitentiary--with no possibility of parole. He mentions casually that the conviction rate for these cases is 95 percent.
To illustrate his point, Hoffman tells the saga of Dejuan Thornton. In February of 2002, Thornton, then 34, was arrested for possessing 43 tinfoil packets of heroin--and a .380 caliber semiautomatic pistol tucked in his waistband. His two prior felony convictions didn't help. He was convicted of firearms and drug charges in October. In January, he was sentenced to 32 years in federal prison--more than twice what he probably would have received in state court. But what really catches the parolees' attention is Hoffman's mention of Thornton's current domicile. He's doing his decades not in the close and familiar confines of the Illinois prison system, but at the federal penitentiary in far-off Leavenworth, Kan., worlds away from his family and friends.
The rigid and distant nature of federal prison time turns Hoffman's little talk from just another warning into a nuclear-tipped threat. PSN can't personally reach all parolees with felony gun records. But forums like this one, coupled with a new advertising campaign aimed at the West Side, are intended as force multipliers--ways to leverage these more intimate meetings into the kind of word-of-mouth that has an impact on other parolees and their cousins in the legal system, probationers. As news of cases like Thornton's makes its way around Chicago's most violence-plagued reaches, cops are starting to hear a new plea from suspects they arrest for gun crimes: "Don't take me federal!"
PSN is part of an effort funded by the U.S. Department of Justice to "vigorously enforce existing gun laws"--a priority on which proponents (the Tribune included) and opponents of stricter gun control laws agree. What's unique about Chicago's PSN is its focus on hard-core gun users--a shrewd strategy in a city where four of every five homicides involve firearms.
In Chicago, federal and county prosecutors meet regularly to examine all West Side gun arrests--including busts by a special gun team of city cops and federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents. Their booty--part of the almost 1,000 illegal guns taken off Chicago's streets every month--routinely includes semiautomatic pistols, assault rifles and guns mounted with laser sights that paint hot-pink dots on their targets. The specifics of each case help the prosecutors jointly determine which laws--federal or state--offer the best tools for taking chronic shooters off the streets.
Last year the feds prosecuted 252 local gun cases, up from 99 the year before. Here, too, the idea is to leverage a limited number of prosecutions into a bigger impact by getting out the word. In six forums thus far, 356 Chicago parolees have learned about several of the Dejuan Thorntons who've already run afoul of PSN.
It's not yet certain that PSN will convince ex-cons and other potential shooters not to lengthen their criminal histories. The program is likely to expand soon, carrying at least the hope of fewer killings to other neighborhoods held hostage by fierce gunplay. PSN's mix of sticks and carrots is just one of the strategies Chicago desperately needs to succeed if the homicide numbers here are to diminish--and if the terrified people who live in those neighborhoods are to enjoy the same security and freedom as the rest of us.
May 5, 2003 Monday, CHICAGOLAND EDITION
SECTION: Editorial; Pg. 18; ZONE: CN
LENGTH: 1105 words
HEADLINE: Targeting shooters
BODY:
Flanked by 52 sullen murderers, robbers and other parolees convicted of gun crimes, David Hoffman launches into his lecture on some unnerving points of federal law. The parolees, who have been brought together beneath the shimmering golden dome of the Garfield Park Fieldhouse, are a select audience: They and other chronic gun criminals who prowl Chicago's streets are prime reasons why this city boasts America's highest big-city murder rate.
There's cause for urgency. A rush of killings since Easter weekend has startled Chicago. Last week Mayor Richard Daley urged police officials to take more preventive steps. The recent victims include a 12-year-old boy apparently killed in a retaliatory shooting for a bike theft in which he wasn't involved, and a doughnut shop clerk gunned down after he allegedly peeved a customer by putting too much sugar in his coffee.
But Hoffman, a young federal prosecutor, doesn't dwell on the outrages of the moment. He and other members of his Project Safe Neighborhoods team are playing a longer game, trying to change the behavior of gangbangers, drug hustlers and other habitual shooters who, year after year, drive the big homicide numbers here. PSN, a pilot program that pulls together federal, state, county and city agencies, marks its first anniversary May 12. And while it's early for back-pats, this is shaping up as the most aggressive attack on gun violence Chicago ever has seen.
The felons of numerous races and hues who face Hoffman are among the Chicagoans statistically most likely to commit future murders. Yet with career prospects that aren't exactly stellar, they're also starved of chances for better lives.
Remarkably, 4,000 of the Illinois Department of Corrections' 37,000 parolees statewide now crowd into the two West Side police districts, Austin and Harrison, where PSN operates--and where 321 people were murdered in the last three years. That concentration of parolees concerns IDOC, which is why Mary Hodge, the agency's chief of investigations and intelligence, warns the parolees they're now under PSN's intense scrutiny. They need to make good choices and break out of old ways, she says to the 52, who by now are sitting up straighter and appear to understand that they're in PSN's spotlight. Dana Starks, commander of the Harrison police district, adds a sobering context: "There's too many of you dying," he says. "In these districts, the majority of people who commit homicides--or become victims of homicides--are ex-offenders."
Current parolees, and the uncounted thousands of former parolees who live in the same impoverished neighborhoods, are key to whether Chicago's streets become even more drenched with blood. Hoffman, Hodge, Starks and others on the PSN team try to offer parolees a full array of options--to avoid future gun crimes, yes, but also to take advantage of the job-training, drug rehab, education and housing help PSN offers.
This being an especially tough audience, sticks come before those carrots. Hoffman holds forth on a crime known as "being a felon in possession." Several parolees squirm as he explains that merely possessing a firearm entitles any ex-convict in the room to spend a minimum of 15 years in a federal penitentiary--with no possibility of parole. He mentions casually that the conviction rate for these cases is 95 percent.
To illustrate his point, Hoffman tells the saga of Dejuan Thornton. In February of 2002, Thornton, then 34, was arrested for possessing 43 tinfoil packets of heroin--and a .380 caliber semiautomatic pistol tucked in his waistband. His two prior felony convictions didn't help. He was convicted of firearms and drug charges in October. In January, he was sentenced to 32 years in federal prison--more than twice what he probably would have received in state court. But what really catches the parolees' attention is Hoffman's mention of Thornton's current domicile. He's doing his decades not in the close and familiar confines of the Illinois prison system, but at the federal penitentiary in far-off Leavenworth, Kan., worlds away from his family and friends.
The rigid and distant nature of federal prison time turns Hoffman's little talk from just another warning into a nuclear-tipped threat. PSN can't personally reach all parolees with felony gun records. But forums like this one, coupled with a new advertising campaign aimed at the West Side, are intended as force multipliers--ways to leverage these more intimate meetings into the kind of word-of-mouth that has an impact on other parolees and their cousins in the legal system, probationers. As news of cases like Thornton's makes its way around Chicago's most violence-plagued reaches, cops are starting to hear a new plea from suspects they arrest for gun crimes: "Don't take me federal!"
PSN is part of an effort funded by the U.S. Department of Justice to "vigorously enforce existing gun laws"--a priority on which proponents (the Tribune included) and opponents of stricter gun control laws agree. What's unique about Chicago's PSN is its focus on hard-core gun users--a shrewd strategy in a city where four of every five homicides involve firearms.
In Chicago, federal and county prosecutors meet regularly to examine all West Side gun arrests--including busts by a special gun team of city cops and federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents. Their booty--part of the almost 1,000 illegal guns taken off Chicago's streets every month--routinely includes semiautomatic pistols, assault rifles and guns mounted with laser sights that paint hot-pink dots on their targets. The specifics of each case help the prosecutors jointly determine which laws--federal or state--offer the best tools for taking chronic shooters off the streets.
Last year the feds prosecuted 252 local gun cases, up from 99 the year before. Here, too, the idea is to leverage a limited number of prosecutions into a bigger impact by getting out the word. In six forums thus far, 356 Chicago parolees have learned about several of the Dejuan Thorntons who've already run afoul of PSN.
It's not yet certain that PSN will convince ex-cons and other potential shooters not to lengthen their criminal histories. The program is likely to expand soon, carrying at least the hope of fewer killings to other neighborhoods held hostage by fierce gunplay. PSN's mix of sticks and carrots is just one of the strategies Chicago desperately needs to succeed if the homicide numbers here are to diminish--and if the terrified people who live in those neighborhoods are to enjoy the same security and freedom as the rest of us.
