By Ted Schnell • BocaJump
The gangland violence that left a 5-year-old dead and two people wounded earlier this month was an uptick, but the totals so far for the year remain well below the numbers of gang shootings Elgin police recorded each year in the mid-1990s.
Some residents are concerned that the two shooting incidents this month may signal the start of a gang war, but city leaders do not believe that is the case.
Mayor David Kaptain told BocaJump on Thursday that he’s been hearing residents express concerns about street gang violence but says he tries to keep it in perspective.
“I think historically, these things go in spurts, and it’s a revenge thing … and then it calms down,” he said. “You have a little bit of flourish, and everybody’s tempers get hot …”
Eric Galarza Jr., 5, was shot because an adult in the car with him was the intended victim, Kaptain said, “and I think that’s important for people to know. These guys are trying to shoot each other — they have a purpose. … They have a plan, no matter how flawed it is … they are targeting people in other gangs.”
The mayor added that doesn’t make the violence less of a concern, but it does illustrate that the gunfire is not random, that it is not like domestic terrorism, for example, where the goal is to hurt as many people as possible, regardless of who they are.
Elgin Police Chief Jeff Swoboda said Friday during an interview with BocaJump, it is difficult to tout the department’s success against gangs in the weeks after Galarza was shot while in his family’s car on the city’s East Side. The boy died in Sherman Hospital.
A week after Galarza’s Oct. 7 death, Elgin police made an arrest in the case. Miguel Hernandez Jr., 27, of Elgin, is charged with first-degree murder charge. Hours after his arrest, two more people were wounded in another gang-related shooting, this one on the city’s near West Side.
Swoboda said that police statistics showing gang crime is down is of little significance to someone who has lost a family member or had one wounded in a gang shooting.
“They don’t care what our stats say,” Swoboda said. “We could sit here with all the stats we want and say what a good job we’re doing, but a 5-year-old was killed. … From a perception standpoint especially, it sets us back years.”
A look at some of the numbers
Perception aside, Swoboda said that through September, gang violence is down, as is the majority of gang crime, compared with the first nine months of recent years, although there has been a surge in the number of cases of graffiti this year.
Overall, he added, Elgin’s crime — especially gang crime — has declined significantly over the past two decades.
Elgin police have recorded 15 gang-related shootings so far in 2011, three of which occurred in September, the last full month for which statistics are available for comparison.
That’s a far cry from the gang violence Elgin witnessed in the mid- to late 1990s. The number of gang shootings in the city stood at 39 in 1991, but skyrocketed to 66 in 1994 and peaked at 81 the next year. But, has been the trend in recent years, gang-related shootings are down — 16 in 2006, 24 in 2007, 37 in 2008, 14 in 2009 and 21 in 2010.
Among the gang-related incidents Elgin police tallied through September this year, 26 were felonies and 205 were misdemeanors; combined there were 75 gang members arrested — 36 of whom were juveniles.
Gang graffiti is up this year with 149 incidents reported, compared to 117 through September 2010, which was the lowest number of incidents in five years.
Kaptain added that he’s heard many say Elgin police did a great job on the investigation into Galarza’s death, with the arrest of a suspect a week later. But Kaptain said he disagrees with that because in his opinion, the police department consistently does a great job.
“They didn’t do anything exceptional here — they just did what they do, and they’ve always done a good job with this,” he said. Kaptain also took exception to comments he’s seen on some blog sites that if the mayor’s son had been the victim, a far more intensive effort would have been exerted. “This is not true — they’re doing their job … they’re not going to do more for this 5-year-old boy than they would do for anybody else. They do this for everybody … whether they’re black, white, Hispanic, everybody’s going to get the same treatment.
“They caught the guy in seven days, it was good police work, but that’s what they do. They’re professionals,” he said. “They’re not going to do this better for somebody else — they do this for everybody.”
From enforcement to problem-solving
Swoboda pointed out that enforcement — reacting to crimes, arresting suspects — always will be part of good police work. But that’s not the only part of police work, nor is it sustainable — you cannot simply
“What we really need to do is work on the problem-solving side of it as well — continuing to work with the residents, identifying problems and then solving problems at an earlier stage than at once when the gunfire starts,” the chief said. “… With the 5-year-old, the community, the neighbors, they saw something and came forward. That’s the most important part — the community coming forward and saying enough is enough, because the victims aren’t going to. The victim today many times is the suspect tomorrow — it’s that kind of mentality.”
Elgin has been focused on the problem-solving aspect of police work for years. Efforts such as the Resident Officer Program of Elgin, which stations police in homes in specific neighborhoods, have been credited with helping tremendously over the years. But that does not stop the police department from adopting new techniques.
One of those is Operation Homefront, an idea that arose within the department’s Gang Unit.
Essentially, Swoboda said, when Gang Unit officers start seeing young kids heading in the wrong direction — hanging out with gang members, for instance, or getting word from a school liaison officer that a student is starting to wear gang colors — the department responds with a visit to the youth’s home.
“One or two of the detectives will actually go out and meet with the parents,” he said. The officers will tell the parents their child has not broken any laws, but officers have been observing indications that he may be getting involved with a street gang.
“So we want to educate the parents,” Swoboda said. “Nowadays, many parents aren’t in the know, whether it’s because they don’t want to know or they are too busy working three jobs to see what Junior’s doing …”
The officers, he said, then educate the parents about the signs of street gang activity, whether it’s clothing or practicing gang graffiti in notepads or bedroom walls.
Getting in contact with kids
Another effort police are making is focused on getting officers into the area’s elementary schools. He said the dissolution of the DARE program several years ago left a hole — officers no longer were visiting the elementary schools on a regular basis. The department’s patrol officers stepped up, he said, to adopt local elementary schools.
Under the program, the officer is expected from time to time to stop at the school he or she has adopted and meet with the principal and establish contact, and stop in at assemblies occasionally.
Another part of the department’s efforts focuses on educating residents through, for example, the Citizen’s Police Academy, which introduces people to the various aspects of police work.
Ultimately, Swoboda said, Elgin’s community policing efforts that began in the mid-1990s have become a department-wide function — all officers are community police officers, problem-solvers.
“Some places, they have community policing officers. They do that work,” the chief said. “In The Elgin Police Department, it’s everybody’s job. … It’s part of what we do in policing, so it’s not an additional assignment.”
