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olewhiskey
11-03-2009, 02:38 PM
Candidates lean on gang members to get out the vote
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December 22, 2002
BY FRANK MAIN AND CARLOS SADOVI STAFF REPORTERS
Come Election Day, gang members across the city will likely trade their baseball caps and street colors for white shirts and ties.

On Feb. 25, they'll take a holiday from the round-the-clock drug dealing that fuels Chicago's billion-dollar narcotics trade. Instead, they'll be selling candidates.

Fanning out into the neighborhoods, they'll hand out palm cards, shuttle elderly voters to the polls, tally the votes and--on the less admirable side--tear down opponents' signs, intimidate opponents' supporters and maybe pick a few fights.

And then, when their candidates win, the gang-bangers will step up and ask, "Where's mine?" In at least 10 of Chicago's 50 wards, a Sun-Times investigation has found, gang members are expected to work in next February's elections as political foot soldiers, a practice loaded with dangerous ethical conflicts for the candidates. Just as no politician in Prohibition Chicago ever cracked down on Al Capone after accepting his money, the fear is that no politician today will stand up to a street gang after accepting its manpower. Though no one could offer proof of a gang engaging in wholesale thuggery on Election Day--or of an alderman coddling a gang in return--the potential for corruption is evident.

"If you think about it, if the gangs get an alderman elected, is he beholden to them?" asked Joe Sparks, a Chicago cop who spent most of his 32 years on the police force going after the gangs. "I think it has a pretty big effect. An alderman is a heck of a guy to step up on your behalf. If you're a gang member, he carries a lot of clout and weight."

On Saturday, Mayor Daley weighed in with a similar view, saying, "Gangs and drug dealers are really the enemy of society.... If they are dealing with those individuals, they are dealing with destroyers of life."

Gangs--from street punks to mobsters--have been involved in Chicago politics since immigrant youths rousted voters to the polls 100 years ago. They're "part of the fabric of the community," said U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, the former 26th Ward alderman. "I've seen evidence in every aldermanic campaign, at some level, of gang members."

On Nov. 5 in Humboldt Park, a gang leader halted drug sales and ordered gang members to get out the vote for the Democrats, said a police investigator who asked not to be identified.

"These guys passed out palm cards for $5 an hour when they could have made $40 an hour selling dope," he said.

Some candidates say they are simply reluctant to turn away enthusiastic volunteers, gang members or not. Other candidates openly court gang members.

"I try to use them in every election," said Ald. Shirley Coleman (16th), who estimated a fourth of her workers in the November election were gang members. She paid 40 to 50 gang members $25 each to get out the vote, she said, and plans to recruit gang members for the Feb. 25 aldermanic election.

A quid pro quo
What's in it for the gangs?

For an individual member, it might be the Election Day paycheck of $25 to $100, a patronage job or the chance to learn the ropes of politics. But there is always the possibility of another, more disturbing trade-off--an understanding that the alderman and police will lay off the gang and let it operate freely.

U.S. Rep. Danny Davis said he's opposed the gangs since he first ran for 29th Ward alderman in 1979. Armed campaign workers guarded his West Side office after gang members hurled bricks through a window.

"I don't think they're in it for police protection," Davis said. "An alderman does not have that much influence over the police. I think they come to the alderman for jobs--for favors."

Lawrence Ligas, a community reformer who runs Logan Square Concerned Citizens, said he knows first-hand that gangs are sometimes looking for something else. He was a volunteer campaign manager for Ald. Vilma Colom (35th) in 1995 when high-ranking gang members came calling, he said.

"They said they could produce the votes for Vilma. They were very blunt. [One] said he controlled the pocket at California, Armitage, Milwaukee. He said, 'All we want from Vilma is to make sure the police stay out of there. I could bring that area in for you.'"

He says he never took them up on it.

Gangs, gangs everywhere
The electoral clout of Chicago street gangs peaked in the early 1990s with 21st Century V.O.T.E., a political action committee tied to the Gangster Disciples. The group launched voter registration drives and unsuccessfully ran two candidates for alderman. One, Wallace "Gator" Bradley, a former enforcer for the GDs, was photographed in the White House with President Bill Clinton and the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson.

Since then, federal prosecutions have decimated the leadership of top gangs, putting kingpins in prison. Their involvement in politics is not as organized. More often now, individual gang members are signing up for duty. But the presence of gangs remains real.

"Anyone in an alderman's race who says, 'I do not have gang members in my campaign,' I'll call him a liar," said Hal Baskin, an ex-gang leader making a fourth run against Coleman in the 16th Ward--and once again planning to use gang members as volunteers.

Seasoned politicians, community activists and gang leaders point to 10 wards where gangs have been active in politics, mostly on the West Side and Near Northwest Side. They're the 16th, 22nd, 24th, 26th, 28th, 29th, 31st, 33rd, 35th and 46th wards. But, they add, gangs and politics mix in most wards.

Ald. Ed Smith says gangs have fought him in his 28th Ward for years, and predicts they'll work on Feb. 25 in the 22nd and 24th Wards, too.

"They'll be back," he said. "The gangs stand around polling places and pass out stuff and knock on doors to tell the candidate's story. You put out a sign today and by tomorrow, they come and destroy it. I've seen it in my ward."

Rolon's rules
The story of Ray Rolon, a retired Maniac Latin Disciples leader, is a classic example of how the system works.

Over the years, Rolon has worked in elections for Colom; Ald. Richard F. Mell (33rd), and Gutierrez in 1986, when he became 26th Ward alderman.

Rolon would assign gang members fluent in English and Spanish to do door-to-door work. They'd canvass the neighborhood to see how many residents supported their candidate. Those residents were counted as "plus votes." On Election Day, his crew of gang members--a dozen per precinct--would descend on buildings with the most plus votes and urge the residents to go to the polls. If an elderly or disabled person needed a ride, it would be arranged.

Rolon paid his workers $75 to $100 for the day and made them dress respectably in white oxford shirts and ties. "Larry Hoover liked that," Rolon said of the imprisoned Gangster Disciples chairman. "The Gangster Disciples started passing out shirts and ties to their guys on the South Side."

Not that Rolon's workers always behaved respectably. They weren't above such minor dirty tricks as tearing down opposing candidates' signs. That work was often left to "shorties"--very young gang members who wouldn't be missed if they were picked up by the police.

"I learned it from the mob," Rolon said of politics, "and then I used it for the Spanish aldermen. . . . In gang neighborhoods, a precinct guy's got to be connected to the gangs or have a gang member or leader working under him. That's the only way you're going to win your precinct in a hotly contested gang neighborhood. If the gangs don't work for you, they work against you."

It's not just manpower that gangs can offer. It's money.

Rolon recalled a fund-raiser in the 1990s for Latino aldermanic candidates. Tickets to the party were $20. A gang leader provided $5,000 in drug money, paying for everybody's tickets.

Chicago police Sgt. John Lucki, who investigates financial crimes, said he's seen gang-connected businesses give money to politicians. As he pointed out: "Everyone has a First Amendment right to donate to campaigns."

So what did Rolon and his workers ask for in return?

Jobs, he says. A chance to go legit.

Rolon himself, thanks to his political connections, worked for the city for 20 years. In 1980, he got a job as a Streets and Sanitation laborer. Five years later, he moved to the Water Department. He left that job in 2000 and, officials say, no longer works for the city.

Gang members--even those with criminal records--aren't barred from city jobs. "Someone recently convicted of theft probably wouldn't be hired in a job handling money, but might be hired to work in other areas," said Law Department spokeswoman Jennifer Hoyle.

Rolon says he urged candidates he worked for to deliver city jobs to at least some of his workers, and when they didn't, he worked against them in the next election. That, he says, was the case with Gutierrez--he promised jobs in 1986, but never came through.

"That's just Ray talking again," replied Gutierrez, saying Rolon tends to inflate his importance in campaigns.

A strange waltz
The conundrum for politicians is that street gangs are poison to a neighborhood, but also part of the neighborhood. The thug who deals drugs under a streetlamp might be an old classmate, a neighbor's son or a nephew. It's easy in the abstract for a politician to turn his back on them, but harder to do in real life. Besides, no politician ever thinks he has enough volunteers.

So some politicians and candidates, such as Coleman, call on the gangs. Others, such as Mell, engage them in an awkward arm's-length waltz.

Rolon worked for Mell in elections. Mell's acknowledged t. But he's insisted Rolon wasn't in his organization.

When Mell's son-in-law Rod Blagojevich ran for Congress in 1996, Blagojevich returned a $450 check from Rolon. To accept it might have compromised him. But later that year, Rolon says, he attended Blagojevich's victory party.

By the time Blagojevich ran for governor this year, the strange dance had ended. Rolon said he played no part in the campaign, as Blagojevich wished.

"Rod said again and again, I do not want gang members involved in my campaigns," explained Doug Scofield, a Blagojevich spokesman. "The governor can't dictate what every alderman or individual public official does."

But why not give a guy a chance?

"In campaigns, there is money available," Scofield replied. "Gang members are attracted to the potential of making a little money on campaigns. Elected officials have to be very careful of who is involved. . . . The outreach you should do is not to make them political workers, but get them out of a life of crime. Asking them to pass out palm cards on Election Day is not the way to do that."

Given this strange dance, it's difficult in any given ward to measure just how politically active the gangs are. Typically, a candidate will say he has little or nothing to do with gangs--but his opponent is hip deep in them.

For instance, Congressman Davis says gangs became active in 29th Ward politics with the election of his nemesis, Ald. Isaac Carothers, in 1999. Yet Carothers, who wrested the ward's Democratic committeeman job from Davis, says that's sour grapes. "I never solicited gangs to become involved in any campaign of mine," he said.

Similarly in the 35th Ward, Colom said she's unaware of "active gang members" in her campaigns. "We don't do background checks on people who volunteer. I have known of people who helped who 15 or 20 years ago may have been a gang-banger. But we don't go solicit gang-bangers to help us campaign."

But Rolon says he worked for Colom in the past. And Rey Colon, Ald. Colom's opponent in the upcoming aldermanic primary, insists he bumped up against gangs in 1999, the last time he ran against her. "My people walked through these guys at election sites," he said. "They did not do physical harm to anyone, but it was intimidating."

Then there's the 26th Ward, where Congressman Gutierrez says he knows gang members have worked for him in elections, but he did not recruit them.

"I went to church with gang members, college with gang members," he said. "It would be impossible for me not to come into contact with them. . . . If I know someone was a gang member and they came to volunteer, that wouldn't disqualify them. I see people who don't want to be in a gang and they see politics as a way out."

Ligas said Gutierrez is being coy.

"He's delivered jobs in the past," Ligas said. "Gangs came out in the 4th Congressional District and he won huge. Luis Gutierrez sent a message to the aldermen that this is the way to win."

Ligas is advising Chicago cop Joseph Pagan in the 30th Ward aldermanic race. Pagan, who lost a 2000 race against Gutierrez for Congress, is challenging opponents to pledge not to use gangs.

'A real danger'
Complaints about politically active gang members misbehaving are common. Police, prosecutors and the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners all report getting complaints about people tearing down signs, making vague threats, starting pushing matches. Most recently, Ligas filed a complaint with police earlier this month saying suspected Maniac Latin Disciples threatened him as he spoke to residents about Pagan. Ligas said the gang members told him to "get the f--- out of the 'hood."

In the rough-and-tumble world of Chicago politics, this sort of threat is common--gangs or no gangs--and seldom prosecuted. But it is at the heart of the threat gangs pose to honest politics: Gangs are terrific at scaring people.

"There is a real danger in using people in the elective process who are involved in gangs," said John Gorman, spokesman for the Cook County state's attorney. "Using such people during election is something we should be very careful of. If they are active gang members, they are there in the community to intimidate and control, and not there to serve the democratic process."

Ald. Ricardo Munoz (22nd) said he doesn't turn away any volunteers, including gang members, unless he knows they are involved in illegal activity.

"Politically, the last thing you want is an individual on your campaign who two nights ago may have thrown a brick through someone's window or stuck somebody up in the corner liquor store," said Munoz, who used to hang out with gangs in his teens. "Not only is it bad politics, but it doesn't respect the neighborhood."

'Gangs to government'
Calvin "Omar" Johnson says he's one of those who went straight, after honing his political skills in his gang days.

Once he was a leader of the Conservative Vice Lords. Now he's GOP committeeman in the 24th Ward and boasts about delivering some programs and jobs to the West Side ward, a Democratic stronghold.

His WorkShip Coalition is known for shutting down the Stevenson Expy. to press for more minority contractors.

The ex-dope dealer proudly pointed to photos in his map-filled "war room," showing him posing with Gov. Ryan; House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert; even former President Bush. A 2002 White House Christmas card lay on a table.

"We took gangs to government," he beamed.

Indian Arrowhead Man
11-03-2009, 03:36 PM
On Nov. 5 in Humboldt Park, a gang leader halted drug sales and ordered gang members to get out the vote for the Democrats, said a police investigator who asked not to be identified.

"These guys passed out palm cards for $5 an hour when they could have made $40 an hour selling dope," he said.

Did I detect a note of admiration for the "donation" through civic duty of those gang members?

Ole Fuzzy
11-03-2009, 03:42 PM
Hehehe.

And what do the drug dealing gang kingpins expect in return from the elected Dims?

Political patronage in a new light.

Indian Arrowhead Man
11-03-2009, 03:43 PM
Hehehe.

And what do the drug dealing gang kingpins expect in return from the elected Dims?

Political patronage in a new light.

I wonder if that's any of the communities that "The Great Community Organizer" ever organized?