Chicago Police Kill Two, Wound Four Others In Raid!

Hampton lost this battle

Absolute filth In Every Room of the Monroe Street Rathole

No more violence at least from Hampton

Fred Hampton in Life

Chicago, IL—This was the top story on December 4, 1969 when war broke out at 2337 West Monroe Street.

The Black Panthers were at war with cops nationwide.  Cops were being ambushed and murdered from coast to coast.  The BP threat was very real and cops were understandably on guard for violence.

This chapter began when the FBI recruited a troubled fellow, William O’Neal who cooperated in order to mitigate his own crimes.  O’Neal became a part of Hoover’s infamous COINTELPRO program, as both a snitch and as an agent provocateur.  O’Neal successfully created a rift between the Panthers and Black Chicago street gangs.  That act alone was incredibly helpful for the safety and well being of Chicago cops.

It was O’Neal, who told police the Monroe Street apartment was being used by the Black Panther Party to store numerous illegal weapons and ammunition for future use against cops that instigated the raid. 

It should be noted that in 1969 there were no specially trained SWAT teams with armored vehicles anywhere.  The common bullet resistant Kevlar vests had not been invented yet.  Raids like this were very dangerous for police.

At 4:45 AM fourteen cops assigned to Cook County State’s Attorney, Ed Hanrahan’s office raided an incredibly filthy apartment occupied by nine members of the Black Panther Party. Throughout the apartment, found with the occupants were 19 firearms and a huge quantity of ammunition.  The Panther arsenal included a stolen Chicago police shotgun and an illegally sawed off shotgun. 

Moments later BP Deputy Chairman, Fred Hampton who was a convicted armed robber and a Peoria, IL BP leader, Mark Clark were shot dead and four other Panthers were wounded. Two cops sustained minor injuries.

Since the described weapons were seized by police that completely validated O’Neal’s claims that were the basis of the Search Warrant.

Various Panthers and their supporters quickly claimed to the assembled Media that only cops fired weapons.  However, during the follow up police investigation four surviving Panthers admitted firing shots at police, one of them in a signed and sworn statement.   

The polarizing and volatile political climate that followed was epic.  The litigation lasted for many years

A 1970 Federal Grand Jury’s exhaustive Investigation resulted not in Indictments but rather numerous recommendations that demanded reform of police and the Coroner’s Office investigative procedures.  

A Cook County special prosecutor was appointed, Barnabas Sears and he quickly led a Grand Jury to Indict all but one of the raiding cops and the sitting State’s Attorney Edward V. Hanrahan.  Nearly three years after the raid Judge Phillip Romiti finally acquitted all charged.  At last the cops were vindicated.

The Federal civil lawsuits against the cops ended differently but the standard of proof is much lower in civil proceedings. 

Today our nation is still divided simply because inviting cultural diversity in any society simply cannot work except in unusual circumstances.  The evidence of that statement speaks for itself.  None the less we still strive for that peaceful and happy melting pot we’ve created in the USA. 

May 25 is a Tragic Anniversary for Chicago

Warning—there are plenty of graphic details in this story.

Chicago, IL—It was May 25, 1979 at 3:15 in the afternoon. Weather in the Windy City could not be nicer. We were just told to switch to short sleeves in a uniform directive.

I was on a one-man car mail delivery run and in the vicinity of West Touhy Ave near O’Hare Airport. I heard an officer come on my radio with emergency traffic saying that a DC-10 airplane was going down. There was genuine panic in that officer’s voice.

Back then, I did not know a DC10 from Piper Cub, just that it was an airplane. I felt warm air hit my left arm that was out my car window. I saw a mushroom shaped cloud appear nearby. I snapped on my lights and siren and raced about two blocks to the scene.

I did not know it but I was about to arrive at the largest airplane disaster to date in U.S history. The crash of American Airlines, flight #191 happened on takeoff from O’Hare to Los Angeles. A wing engine fell off, due to maintenance shortcut mechanics used to reattach the engine to the wing using a forklift. The plain rotated in the sky and landed upside down on a somewhat small open field located at 400 West Touhy Ave.

As I arrived firemen were spraying foam on a field. They were just across the street and wasted no time getting there. I began looking for the plane or at least a fuselage but could see none. The smoldering ground around me was apparently burned. This was as a result of a flash fire and about every 15 or 20 feet I could see human body trunks. It was nothing less than a war scene. There were smaller body parts such as arms and legs strewn around the area.

Digesting the magnitude of this disaster was surreal. Being one of the very first officers on the scene gave me the closest parking spot. My squad car would be trapped there for days by so many other emergency vehicles.

I looked for survivors and there were none anywhere. Ambulance crews arrived with IV bags in their hands. The look of utter horror was on nearly every face I saw.

The medical responders quickly learned they served no function but for a single Chicago cop.

The Chicago Police K-9 training center was right up against the crash site and the cop was standing nearby as the fully fueled plane came down in a huge ball of fire. He had singed hair and suffered a nasty sunburn-like injury to his face and arms. He appeared traumatized by the experience but thrilled to be alive.

Police and fire units appeared from jurisdictions throughout the area. The crash site was unincorporated Cook County and was the responsibility of the Sheriff’s Police. They could not handle this alone. There were in addition, Chicago, Schiller Park, Forest Preserve, Franklin Park, Rosemont and Illinois state police assisting.

Other than to protect the crash site with plain rope there was little to do (yellow crime scene tape had not yet been invented).

I quickly had to deal with a feisty WMAQ-TV reporter and crew walking on the sparsely protected site. It was veteran reporter Dick Kay and he would not budge from the scene until he saw me reaching for my handcuffs. Kay was first on the scene and wanted to earn another Emmy. Kay retreated but was close enough to report on the action. Kay was somewhat unhappy with me.

From my time of arrival until two hours had passed the police command structure formulated the plan to deal with this massive calamity. They did not teach plane crash 101 in the police academy. I was in for a learning experience. In reality the crash was treated like a massive traffic accident.

There was a junkyard and a trailer park that became part of the scene. I found a man’s left arm sticking out of a broken trailer window. He had an expensive blue pinstriped suit and a French cuff with a gold cufflink and a fine looking watch. It was just the arm with no body attached. The arm belonged to a young professional man for sure.

I could see the tail engine resting on what was the head of a naked woman. She has a great body with little injury other than the appearance of sunburn. I could not guess what happened to all her clothes. Her body could not be removed until some piece of heavy equipment could lift the engine.

Standing out in the field were two metal boxes just yards apart. They had bright diagonal stripes on them and we quickly determined they were the “black boxes” or the flight voice recorder and the flight data recorder.

The plan was formulated to pass out wooden stakes and body bags. Officers were given numbers to mark the stakes and corresponding bags. We were put into teams of three. One to write about what we were bagging, another to photograph the remains and the other for the labor connected with filling the bags. The whole process was, well organized and moved slow but smoothly.

Officials that today I call, tourists arrived. Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney Terry Sullivan was there but I don’t have a clue why to this day. A U.S. postal inspector claiming to be looking for mail and the newly elected Chicago Mayor, Jane Byrne with her newly appointed police superintendent, Richard Brzeczek. Someone should have told the Mayor to wear sensible shoes for walking of the debris-laden field. Brzeczek was apparently trying to protect her from seeing me holding a young woman’s severed head with my hand by the hair as she passed by.

The sun had set and soon we were working by flashlights and lighting trucks brought to the scene. I found myself tangled in what seemed to be miles and miles of fine wire. I was in the area where the cockpit and it’s instrument panel had landed. Soon I saw a blue jacket sleeve with horizontal stripes near the cuffs. It was a pilot’s Hart, Schaffner& Marks brand jacket with the name “LUX” printed with a blue ballpoint pen above the inside pocket. It was the jacket of the captain, Walter Lux. His body and two more required some extra effort to remove the wire and instruments from their remains.

Later we had worked our way to the junkyard and located the charred remains of workers that sought refuge under tow trucks. There was one badly burned body trunk inside the bed of a tow truck.

Later I found my regular partner,  that arrived. He couldn't normally deal very well with blood and gore. He handled his duties well in the mess but he was unable to deal with the inappropriate gallows humor some used to better deal with the unthinkable.

We had missed dinner and were starving. There was no way to take the car and get a bite to eat. But a Brown's Fried Chicken catering truck arrived after midnight with 2,000 pieces of crispy fried chicken.

We had been breathing burned jet fuel for hours and could barely taste the food. Of course there were the bad jokes about extra crispy chicken to go with the extra crispy victims.

There were no cell phones in those days and calling our spouses and girlfriends was impossible until Illinois Bell Telephone brought a wired trailer with pay phones to the scene. We made the calls and learned everyone figured out we were working the crash since it was all over the news.

I continued to bag human remains throughout the night. In one case I found a young mother holding her tender aged child tightly. I put both of them in the same bag because it was obvious they belonged together. I just used one stake, bag but used two numbers.

Finally after an exhausting night it was 4:30 AM and they told me to go home. They had arranged for officers to give us taxi service to our homes.

My uniform was destroyed along with my new Corfram duty shoes. The sharp aluminum debris cut through everything.

For the next couple of days I could only smell or taste jet fuel. It had taken over my airway and sinuses.

I had a trip to Phoenix, Arizona on American Airlines, planned in just two days. I took my trip and as we left the runway I looked down at the site and could still see my stranded squad car blocked in by so many other vehicles.

The investigations and litigation went on for decades after that crash. 273 souls were taken on this day 32 years ago.

UPDATE: May 15, 2019  Ive been asked to attend the 40th Anniversary Memorial Service planed for May 25, 2019.  So many fellow first responders have since died.  I think I should not miss this service.

Let me take you on a tour of an historic courtroom at 2600 S. California Avenue, Chicago, IL

Chicago, IL—During a recent trip to Chicago involving a criminal trial I wanted to take my blog visitors inside the historic criminal courthouse. This is where the infamous mobster, Al Capone was tried and convicted for Income Tax Evasion. Long ago the Federal Judiciary used some of these facilities for their business too.

The movie, The Fugitive starring Harrison Ford was filmed is a courtroom here too. It’s a rare day when cameras are allowed in and never during court proceedings.

In 1971 a violent and dangerous criminal, Eugene “Iceman” Lewis’ attempted a daring escape from Judge Earl Strayhorn’s 7th floor judge’s chambers.

Lewis, a well know militant Black thug was already under one well-deserved death sentence and was about to receive another for the cold-blooded killing of a Thillen’s Security guard servicing the Sebring Jukebox Company’s payroll more than a year earlier.

Lewis took a bailiff and assistant state’s attorney hostage with a gun provided by a court clerk who was enamored with the killer. She placed the gun in a hollowed out book for Lewis. Lewis was kept in the chambers handcuffed under guard by an armed bailiff. Concealed inside Lewis’ mouth was a homemade handcuff key from a ball point pen refill. He used the key to slip one wrist from the cuffs and dashed for the gun inside the book.

Lewis then disarmed the bailiff and with a revolver in each hand grabbed the hapless prosecutor and bailiff and began his walk to freedom.

An Area Four detective, Crosette "Lee" Hamilton heard the commotion and concealed himself behind the gray steel freight elevator outside door. In the years since this even that large steel door was removed and no longer exists. Hamilton waited for the trio to pass and fired the first shot. Two uniformed officers assigned to the court from the Marquette District (010) opened fire on Lewis as he fell to the ground.

Lewis managed to wound the state’s attorney in the hand and another shot struck local lawyer, Leonard Karlin in the butt.

When we lifted Lewis’ body from the floor there was a flattened .38 standard 158 grain lead bullet on the floor, under his head. that bullet never even penetrated the killer’s head!

Within a few minutes of the shooting I personally saw, Black Panther Party, founder and now Congressman Bobby Rush was on the scene visibly angry and shaken up. To this day I believe that Rush was involved in the escape plot and was perhaps waiting in a car outside on California Ave. If Rush was an accomplice he still could be charged with felony murder of Lewis since there is no statute of limitations on that crime.

I attended the post mortem examination of Lewis and counted 22 holes from as many 18 gunshots. The Iceman would never hurt anyone again.

Within a day the presiding criminal judge, Joe power told me he was ordering big changes. Power had ordered the Cook County Sheriff, Joseph I Woods to provide his police to search everyone entering the building. Power concluded that people entering the building, are doing it as a matter choice and that the search was then consensual. For the next month 35 guns per average day were taken from court visitors surprised by the search. Thousands of knives and an astronomical amount of narcotics were recovered. There were no prosecutions of these people most of which were already convicted felons. Instead we confiscated the contraband during a three-month grace period. After that, arrests were finally being made.

This is when and where courthouses all over America suspended the Fourth Amendment and 40 years later that suspension has become a defacto revocation. The searching of courthouse visitors has spread to nearly every court in America.

Our Lady Of Angels Fire 50 Years Ago.

Chicago, IL—On December 1, 1958 I was a fifth grader at Hyde Park’s St. Thomas Apostle. One of my mother’s boyfriends was buying me a bicycle as an early Christmas present. The old black & white TV was on at the Ace Bicycle Shop on 55th Street. At the time we lived in an apartment on Hyde Park Blvd just East of Dorchester.

The gray haired shop owner was really upset. There had been an inferno at Our Lady Of Angles School. The police and firemen being interviewed were all crying and the pictures were graphic and awful. An army of first responders were all carrying dead children in their arms. Before it was over 92 children and three Catholic nuns were dead. Scores of other were injured.

I think I really learned that I was only a mortal that day. Even kids my age could die. Before then this notion was unthinkable. I think every kid in Chicago got extra hugs that day.

The horrible fire was not unnoticed at St. Thomas. The nuns began working with firemen holding fire drills and steps were taken so this would never happen at my school.

Fire and police officials investigated that fire for years after. Arson was suspected in the beginning and later all but ruled out as the cause.

I don’t think those Chicagoans alive back then would ever forget that terrible day. If there is a good side it’s that extraordinary steps were taken with building codes and such. Perhaps as a result all children are safer today.

I know Chicago still grieves over the day Chicago lost so many angels.


Here is another video...

Illinois Governor Prison Fellowship Club

I don’t know how Chicago’s Mayors never get sent to Club Fed. I’ve been hearing juicy rumors for four years that Richard M. Daley may get a vacation there soon but who knows for sure.

As for the Governors of Illinois, I’ve seen three get sentenced to the club.

Otto Kerner, who had a brilliant military career, served on important Presidential Commissions, was elected Governor, and resigned to accept a seat as a Judge on the United States Court of Appeals. Kerner fell from Judgeship for corruption as Governor right into a prison cell. Kerner died a defeated man in 1976. I met Kerner’s beautiful daughter and her brother just after the old man died. These fine kids suffered tremendously as a result of Judge Kerner’s crimes.

Dan Walker, a political gadfly, and lawyer worked for Chicago’s Montgomery Wards. Walker won the Governor’s office as a Maverick, Left Wing Democrat after he walked the entire state in an unusual campaign. Walker after leaving office got caught with his hands in the cookie jar. He was indicted on a Bank Fraud and Perjury beef. Soon, Walker did the “perp walk” to the Federal Courthouse and then walked into his prison cell.

Now Governor George Ryan has joined this club with a six and one half year stretch he may be unable to survive at age 70.

For George Ryan he was sparred from being taken into custody and hauled away. Often in federal matters the judges order the hapless jailbird to report on his own like a kid going off to college. Here the judge is weighing bail pending appeal. If Ryan gets that deal he can litigate and evade prison for more years than he has left on this earth. Don’t we all hope we can get that kind of break should we betray the public trust.

How many other states can claim three Governors imprisoned within three decades?

When I think of Illinois politicians I think of the former Secretary of State Paul Powell. When he died in Springfield’s St. Nicholas Hotel they found millions of dollars stuffed in shoe boxes in a closet.

Update: the fellowship has a new member! Welcome Governor Rod Blagojevich! See the 76 page complaint here.