A Cadaver Dog Sniffs Through Brush

“I’m restless. It’s unbearable to know that there’s a child out here and we have no clue where he is,” said Germaine Porter. Her own child, Kenneth Porter, Jr., was murdered nine years ago as he was walking home from Proviso East High School, shot to death by a boy with a grudge. Porter, a member of Mothers of Murdered Sons, is one of more than 40 volunteers who’ve assisted with the rescue efforts of one-year old Bryeon Hunter, who was murdered last week by his mother and her boyfriend. Some have trampled in the muck themselves in search for the small body. Others have helped distribute water and refreshments to the professionals.

Germaine Porter is Interviewed by Television Reporter. On the Button Pinned to Her Chest Is the Face of Her Son.

Maywood Police Chief Tim Curry was a few feet away from Porter, looking out toward the slowly receding Des Plaines River at its 1st and Madison point. The location, the Chief said, is one of several points along the river that the Maywood Police Department, in collaboration with the Cook County Sheriff’s Department, have chosen to focus on. The others include 1st and Oak, 1st and Washington, 1st and Chicago and near Maybrook Courthouse. He wanted people to know that he and his officers “have been searching everyday since” Hunter went missing. “We’ve never been out of the picture,” he said.

Maywood Police Chief Tim Curry Coordinates Search

He also emphasized that, although officials caution volunteers from getting so involved in the search that they hamper the efforts of the professionals, “Nothing stops [people] from rolling up their sleeves, being on the look out and reporting what they see.” Of course, volunteers should understand that they assist at their own risk.

Germaine Porter Assists in the Search

As we stood on the scene, Trustee-elect Michael Rogers and Trustee Melvin Lightford walked up to the bridge. “I’m here as a citizen,” Rogers said, as he looked on. Trustee Ronald Rivers, who’d been talking with Ms. Porter when I arrived, lamented what he felt was a negativity bias that the media had with Maywood. He said that the only time people filmed or printed content about the Village was when there was something bad happening. As he opined, a WGN satellite van was parked in front of him. Another was parked around the corner, outside of the unincorporated zone and in front of the River Forest Community Center — a world and a stone’s throw away.

WGN News Van Parked Outside of River Forest Community Center

From the Sun-Times Media Wire, May 10, 2013, 7:50 am:

A 37-year-old La Grange man died Thursday after a shooting in west suburban Maywood.

[Mylo] William Miles, 37, of the 1600 block of Barnsdale Road, was wounded at 843 S. 21st St. in Maywood, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office.

He was pronounced dead at 10:39 a.m. Thursday at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, according to the medical examiner’s office.

An autopsy is scheduled for Friday.

Maywood police are investigating.

ABC Local has just reported that police might have discovered the body of one-year-old Bryeon Hunter:

At approximately 10:15 pm, a car carrying Dashamone D. McCarty, 19, was traveling west on Filmore at 4th Avenue when shots rang out and the driver of the vehicle found McCarthy slumped over. The driver rushed the victim to Loyola Hospital, where he is being treated, said Chief Tim Curry. McCarthy’s present condition is not known at this time. Maywood Police are investigating, but do not yet have a motive. No one is in custody. For other reports, see here.

By Michael Romain

On April 16, an Amber Alert went out for one-year-old Bryeon Hunter. The baby’s mother, LaKesha Baker, claimed he was abducted by three Hispanic men in an SUV, but the mother’s story quickly unraveled. Less than a week after Hunter went missing, Baker and her boyfriend, Michael Scott, were charged with first-degree murder. Based on information obtained from the suspects during interrogation, authorities took to searching the Des Plaines River for Hunter’s body. But nearly a month after the child’s disappearance, his body was yet to be found.

To those who have never waded through its murkiness, the Des Plaines River may seem placid enough, nothing more than a liquid pause in a loud concrete landscape–at least until provoked and its background placidity turns intrusive.

On April 18, the Des Plaines flooded. Heavy rains had swollen the river twenty feet above its typical crest, swallowing up the rush and bustle of boulevards and bridges, flooding basements – including that of the home in which Hunter was allegedly beaten by Baker and Scott until he was limp and lifeless. He had reportedly proved difficult to potty-train.

As a result of the torrential rains, the Village’s Public Works Department was called in to pump out the deluged basement of Hunter’s home so that the evidence-gathering could proceed apace. Several massive, coordinated search operations were conducted by the Maywood Police Department, the Illinois Search and Rescue Council and the Cook County Sheriff’s Department. By May 10, Maywood Police Chief Tim Curry reported, “Under the conditions of the swelling and the flow of the river, it’s unlikely that we’ll recover anything.”

Four days after the Chief’s prognosis, Robert Larson, owner of K-9 Specialties in Westchester, was out kayaking. “I’m not a kayaker. I bought it for this mission,” he said. His mission was to find Bryeon. He’d been out with his two dogs, a Yellow Labrador and a German Shepherd, for ten to twelve hours a day over the past thirty days, zealously trekking through mud up to his knees, picking through piles of debris, not quite shaking the hunch he’d had all along.

Larson’s Yellow Lab Sifting Through Rubble (image by Robert Larson)

“The very initial breath my dogs took was right at the bridge by McDonald’s,” he said. He believes that Baker and Scott may have thrown the body from the bridge at 1st and Lake while traveling 25-30 mph. “[The body] was going forward, which put it toward the shoreline [...] I told them [the authorities] from the start where that body was going to be when I found it.”

But Larson’s brash persistence didn’t go over well with some of the search officials. The day before the torrential rains, the chief commander of the search party suggested on Larson’s Facebook page that he “leave the searching to those trained and certified.” Larson responded, “I did that and nothing is being done.” The commander assured Larson that “trained resources are being used [...] when civilians with untrained resources get involved it hampers prosecution and investigation.”

Larson, who specializes in training search and rescue dogs, said that after receiving the post, he stepped down for the day and went to his son’s baseball practice. “When they were done, I continued my search.”

“I’d been on foot everyday except for [the day he found Hunter],” he said. “That day, I left my dogs at home so I could search the river through all those piles of debris that you can’t get to on the river bank.” Hence, his purchase of the plastic kayak. From its banks or from a bridge, the Des Plaines river tricks one into thinking that its a “picnic area,” Larson said. “But up close it looks like a war zone.”

Larson’s Kayak (image by Robert Larson)

“The water’s extremely murky, it’s flowing fast, mud to my knees out there [...] piles of debris all the way down. Every standing tree has a pile of debris pushed up against it. Anything you can think of – garbage, sticks, branches, grills, patio furniture, you name it.”

On May 9, Larson posted on Facebook: “NO CHILD DESERVES THIS…OUR CHILDREN ARE OUR FUTURE BUT SOCIETY IS CONSTANTLY KILLING THEM.” This insightful attribution of blame is as effusive as the river. It is all-encompassing and true, but impractical, which reveals less the failure of Larson’s analysis than the failure of this society to even take it into account.

The question of who killed Bryeon Hunter is incomplete if we consistently leave out the what (or the whats), which is why the account of Larson’s discovery is more than just symbolically significant. “Where I found the boy was in one of those piles. I didn’t think it would make it through that debris, but sure enough it got caught up in it.”

Larson’s kayak was moving fast with the dirty current when he caught wind of a putrid odor coming from one of the piles. “It was unclothed and decomposing, face up in the water. When I encountered him I was no more than three feet away.” Larson had to double back to verify that what he’d just seen was indeed more than a thing among a wasteland of abandoned things. “I could see his teeth, face, arms, hand,” he said.

Larson’s discovery was the culmination of a month of all-encompassing dedication. He says that he was motivated by what he perceived to be a lack of the professionals to do enough. “I saw a posting on Facebook that morning,” he said of the day he first decided to become involved. He saw the formal investigation and search efforts unfold and was unsatisfied. “I figured this is right around the corner from my house,” he said.

In fairness, Maywood Police Chief Tim Curry said that Larson never contacted him about his voluntary efforts. Curry said he only spoke to Larson when he congratulated him on discovering the body and that, instead of contacting Maywood police after his discovery, Larson contacted Cook County. Moreover, the Maywood Police Department received wide praise from Maywood residents and public officials for its handling of the case.

So far, I’ve received no reports of volunteers being spurned by the Maywood Police after presenting their willingness to assist with the search efforts. Most indications of which I’m aware point to either a lack of volunteers who presented themselves to the police or a disconnect between those leading the massive, inter-agency searches, such as the chief commander who posted on Larson’s Facebook page, and Larson himself, who claims that he led a motley crew of up to 75 intrepid volunteers throughout his 30 days of looking.

If anything, there seems to have been a lack of foresight on the part of the chief commander, who blindly dismissed the training of a man who trains search and rescue dogs for a living (his company’s name, K-9 Specialties, is on Larson’s Facebook page, so it boggles the mind how the chief could have failed to see it). The chief commander could not be reached for comment.

But this is delving in mere intrigue. The larger issue is what happened when Robert Larson got to the river. “When you walk down from that bridge, you can’t accept that being a little boy’s final resting place,” he said. And he didn’t–despite sacrificing his time and risking personal harm. And for that, he’s a hero. But what does it say of us — of everyone — that we’ve turned rivers into virtual war zones? And that the conditions that bred Bryeon’s tragedy in the first place (the impersonal, social conditions, take your pick) remain solidly in place?

Bryeon Hunter and the Des Plaines River are both victims of systemic abuses that won’t get rectified by jailing individual perpetrators or hailing individual heroes. Society itself (which means everyone) has to summon its inner Robert Larson and be willing to walk down from the comfort and safety of our constructed illusions and wade into the water of the real.

The Village of Maywood plans on formally recognizing Mr. Larson at its next board meeting on May 21, 2013. Until then, the residents of Maywood would like to extend our greatest thanks to Mr. Larson’s courageous efforts.

According to a report by the Chicago Tribune, “A 51-year-old motorist was killed this afternoon during a car crash near his Maywood home, authorities said. Curtis Atkins, of the 1900 block of South 11th Avenue in Maywood, was declared dead at 4 p.m. on arrival at Loyola University Hospital in Maywood, according to a spokesman for the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

Atkins was behind the wheel of a red Chrysler car that crashed at the intersection of 10th Avenue at Harvard Street, near his home, said Maywood police Chief Tim Curry.

“He stuck [sic] a parked vehicle, bounced off that vehicle, struck a tree, and flipped over,’’ Curry said.

Curry said the cause of the wreck was not known immediately.

“We don’t know how fast he was going,’’ Curry said.

~

McCarty (left) of Proviso East is guarded by Schaumburg’s Kyle Bolger during a game March 9, 2012. (Darrell Goemaat / Chicago Tribune / March 9, 2012)

Also from the Tribune, an update on the shooting of Dashamone McCarty, the 19-year old shot in the head “while sitting in the back seat of a moving car near Fourth Avenue and Fillmore Street [...]

“McCarty was taken to Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, where he died Thursday, according to officials with the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

“McCarty, who was on summer break from college, lived with Jones’ family for seven years in Maywood, according to Jones, who referred to him as his brother.

‘He (McCarty) and our group of friends chose to be different,’ Jones said. ‘We were never involved in selling drugs and we stayed away from gangs. The shooting must have been random because nobody would target him.’

Maywood police Chief Tim Curry said McCarty was shot at about 10:55 p.m.

Curry would not comment on a possible motive or whether a suspect was in custody.

McCarty graduated last year from Proviso East High School in Maywood, where he played on the basketball team. He attended Dakota College in Bottineau, N.D., where he played on the basketball and football teams, Jones said.”

According to a report just released by the Forest Park Patch, an investigation coordinated by the River Forest Police, Forest Park Police and the West Suburban Enhanced Drug and Gang Task Force led officials to “a Maywood apartment, where 280 grams of heroin, as well as smaller quantities of crack and ecstasy, were found.” The report continues:

“Police seized about $28,000 in heroin and arrested three Maywood men following an investigation that originated in River Forest.

Earlier in May, a River Forest police officer conducted a street stop that netted narcotics and intelligence information. River Forest police teamed with the West Suburban Enhanced Drug and Gang Task Force and Forest Park police to execute a search warrant on May 9.

The information police received led them to an apartment in the 500 block of Main Street in Maywood, where police found 280 grams of heroin and smaller quantities of crack and ecstasy.”

To read more on this development, go here.

The three suspects pictured below. (Top, left to right) Chevalier Armstrong, Maurice Thurman and (bottom) Thomas Mason. Photos credited to Michael Sewall):

By Michael Romain

State Representative Emanuel “Chris” Welch announced in the recent legislative update his office mailed out today that he called for a moment of silence in honor of 19-year old DaShamone McCarty while on the floor of the House of Representatives. McCarty was shot in the back of the head while in the driver’s seat of a moving car this past Wednesday in Maywood. He had recently returned home from his first year of college.

Rep. Welch wrote: “DaShamone was a good kid. A student athlete. Three sport athlete at Proviso who went on to be a two sport athlete in College. I personally gave DeShamone his diploma in May 2012.  He was a good kid. A kid who was suppose to make it. My heart and prayers go out to his family. May his soul rest in peace.”

Tomorrow at 5pm, there will be a prayer vigil held at the Fred Hampton Memorial Site on 4th and Oak for the families of Maywood murder victims. The event is sponsored by The Covenant Daughters of Elohim. Phyllis J. Duncan, the founder and executive director of Mothers of Murdered Sons (MOMS), will be one of the speakers.

Duncan said the event is an attempt to bring awareness to the violence happening in Maywood and to lend support, in particular, to the families of baby Bryeon Hunter and DaShamone McCarty. “This is the beginning of the summer and we just want to cover this community with our prayers and commitment to make a difference.”

McCarty’s recent murder has provoked more than hushed tributes. Today, Rep. Welch released a separate statement regarding McCartey’s murder.

“In Springfield,” he wrote, “I am pushing for comprehensive gun legislation to keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill. I will continue to fight for safer communities and support legislation that creates jobs, provides access to quality education, improves access to health care and takes proactive steps to address the problems that cause lead [sic] to gun violence.”

Participants join hands at Saturday’s prayer vigil.

By Michael Romain

Saturday, May 18, 2013, Maywood – When Patrick Winters got to the podium he held out the bullhorn that served as the event’s impromptu sound system and with it reproduced the blare of emergency sirens. “This is the sound we hear every time our children are killed! This is the sound we’re trying to drown out of our community!”

Winters stood on a wooden stage foregrounded by a fenced-in gazebo that is dilapidated and weathered. In the past, the gazebo may have been the focal point of this gathering, but now it is inaccessible and unused. Hand-colored posters enlivened the fencing around the gazebo, but didn’t quite offset or mute the dying structure’s dirge presence — a dark reminder that in the past this event most likely would not have been needed. And an even darker reminder that that past is gone.

Patrick Winters tends to the bullhorn.

This was billed as a night of prayer for Maywood (“Taking Maywood Back” was the theme on the program), planned and executed by Billy Fowlkes and Ruby Carswell, the stewards of a ministry they call the Covenant Daughters of IAM ‘Elohim’. Carswell, the ministry’s founder, desires to have her organization’s prayers issue forth and support the Village as a chamber supports a heart. Fowlkes, an evangelist and the ministry’s executive assistant, said he was motivated to do something after returning to Maywood from Memphis, TN, and noticing that the Village in which he grew up was not the Village to which he returned.

Mayor-elect Perkins talks to attendees.

Fowlkes claims that his family was one of the first that settled in Maywood. His grandmother, Arwilder Fowlkes, was apparently the second black student who graduate from Proviso East and Washington Elementary. She was also one of the organizers of Second Baptist Church in Maywood. And Fowlkes’s father was the first black athletic director of District 89.

Billy Fowlkes at the podium.

Currently, Billy Fowlkes serves as a volunteer at the Boys and Girls Club on 200 S. Fifth Avenue. He observes young people like 19-year-old DaShamone McCarty practically everyday. When he convened the first planning meeting for this night of prayer about a month ago, McCarty was still alive. There were about ten or twelve people who came at his invitation, including Mayor-elect Edwenna Perkins and former mayoral candidate Nicole Gooden. Before the meeting, Folwkes piled a stack of West Suburban Journal newspapers headlining the case of one-year-old Bryeon Hunter on the table where attendees were to sit — a reminder of sorts of why they were there.

Now, two days after McCarty’s shooting death, the program acquired a fresh relevance. “We are losing too many kids over nonsense!” Fowlkes blared into the bullhorn, which, like the gazebo, seemed freighted with symbolism. The microphone system at the podium had proven useless, because the electricity in the park at 4th and Oak had abruptly cut off.

The complication sent Fowlkes into a conspiratorial tantrum. “I need you to write that Maywood cut our power off!” he told me when I arrived. Fowlkes would eventually settle for the more crackly alternative. The persistent presence of the bullhorn, ironically, would add to the event a layer of protestation, of urgency, that makes a microphone staid by comparison. Prayers mouthed from bullhorns seem aesthetically more political, more worldly, than prayers mouthed from mics.

Fowlkes formally opened the ceremony with a moment of silence for Bryeon Hunter. He began reading from Philippians 4:6-9. “Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God…” After his scripture, Fowlkes introduced the night’s moderator, Angela Taylor Brown, who followed Prophetess Ruby Carswell, the ceremony’s co-planner.

Carswell ascended the stage dressed in a gleaming white power suit that she seems to have trademarked. She’d worn a similar white suit at the first planning meeting. It is as if Carswell, a reformed drug addict and herself the mother of a son who was shot in Maywood, wants to constantly remind herself and others of her unlikely transformation. She may literally wear her testimony, her deliverance, on her sleeves.

Once she got the podium, Carswell immediately went into a sermonic sing-song, prayers interlacing scriptures interlacing declarations interlacing rapid-fire, indecipherable glossolalia. “We call for the power of the holy ghost to step in right now!” The crowd, enraptured by her charisma, responded with calls of affirmation.

Prophetess Ruby Carswell (right) speaking to the crowd.

Fowlkes had directed the crowd of about seventy to form an interlocking circle of unity as different speakers approached the podium. At the circle’s focal points were several children holding handmade banners with anti-violence messages. Prayers followed prayers. “We believe this is going to be a catalyst for the Holy Spirit!” one man prayed. “We stomp the devil out of Maywood in Jesus’ name!” prayed Fowlkes. “We want to know why our children are dying!”

Once the circle was broken and people went back to their seats, the camp revival atmosphere shifted somewhat to that of a public memorial, with several people’s personal accounts of the way Maywood used to be sounding more like elegies than nostalgic reminiscences. There was another moment of silence for baby Hunter and DaShamone McCarty.

Young children hold anti-violence posters inside of a prayer circle.

Sonja McCoy, a 26-year employee of Loyola and lifelong Maywoodian who runs Eternal Light Community Services, an organization that facilitates positive programming for the town’s youth, talked about her own youth in the Village. “I remember when,” she said as a refrain, providing a litany of things that once were, but are no longer. Swift merry-go-rounds. Softball games at Winfield Park. Tag at the Rec. The swirly slide at Water Works Park. The A&P. The time when Maywood had not one, but two libraries.

If McCoy’s version of Maywood was paradisaical, Debra Spears’s Maywood was paradise lost. Maywood was her home. She shared McCoy’s enthusiasm about everything the town offered in its heyday. But then things changed. “It got to a point where I had to leave Maywood,” said Spears, who spoke later on in the program. “I lost my son to gun violence in 2003. I had to leave the house where I was raised. I had neighbors who were selling drugs,” she said. Spears, whose son lived for more than a year after he was shot, said that she reached out to the Board, the police, the Mayor. “They still did nothing.”

“I love Maywood. I was raised here,” said Stacy Kemp. “I remember having fights with some of my best friends. Now kids fight and one ends up dead and one is going to the penitentiary.”

Kemp is an ex-convict. “In a lot of different situations they don’t allow us to speak out! We need the community to allow us to speak to these kids!” He said that he is only one of many who are typically silenced because of their past. “There are a lot of us…My story is not unique. I’m just up here talking. There are thousands of us!” And then Kemp’s talk took an unexpected turn into economics. “I hate to get into the business of the correctional system, but if it don’t make money, it don’t make sense,” he said.

Minister Noel Caffey III was dressed in a suit and tie, a serious-looking man who looked no older than twenty-five. He delivered a kind of sermonette, riffing on a rap song by Nas entitled, “I Know I Can.” He ended his brief performance by reciting the lyrics. “If I just work hard at it, I can be what I want to be!” After getting down from the stage, Caffey donned an accessory that seemed more congruent with his age, but sort of clashed with the stiff formality of his suit — a fitted baseball cap.

Caffey’s merging of the spiritual with the explicit materiality of Hip-Hop (the world of sagged pants, of bling, of rampant hedonism, of political immaturity) may have been the night’s moment of foreshadowing. Caffey, DaShamone McCarty’s generational peer, is the future. He is the objectified ‘them’, the recklessly self-destructive young so often referenced throughout the night, but rarely heard. His message symbolized one of the ways the youth themselves have  sought to transcend the destructive limitations of a world they had no say in devising.

Noel Caffey III speaks to the gathering.

As the evening wore on, the park darkening, barely illuminated by the lamp posts lining Oak Street, the communal discussion extended to universal considerations. Phyllis Duncan, the founder of Mothers of Murdered Sons (MOMS), said, “We have lost our moral dignity. We have given our children to the streets.” At one point during her message, she invited all of the mothers who had lost children to gun violence to stand. I was looking for the mother of McCarty, but didn’t see her. There was, however, a woman seated in a chair not far from the stage. She was hunched over, weeping.

Phyllis Duncan speaks to the crowd.

“Erica can’t stand, because her son was killed by a Maywood police officer on Madison and 19th on November of last year,” Duncan said. “This is not new to our community. When we lose one child it affects us all. When we lose our black males, it takes away from the generations…Who is going to marry my granddaughter?”

Who is going to marry my granddaughter?

Duncan addressed a question often heard after the shooting deaths of black males. “Was he in a gang? What difference does it make! We got to stop putting these labels on our sons!” Duncan talked about the murder of her own son. “I think about that boy when I go to bed and when I wake up,” she said. Duncan has since sublimated her pain into action and awareness.

She referenced Stacy Kemp, the ex-convict who offered his own succinct economic theory of the business of incarceration. “This brother is part of the solution!” she said. According to Duncan, Kemp’s condition, along with that of millions of other young black men, is symptomatic of a much grander crime. “This is systematic! This is not something that happens over night!” However, she was emphatic that, although the problem is systematic, the solution is much closer to home. “We have to save ourselves for ourselves.” She offered a few immediate solutions. “Get to know your neighbor! Get to know the children in your communities!”

After she spoke, Duncan introduced William Hampton, the brother of slain Black Panther and Maywood icon Fred Hampton. Bill Hampton, a Maywood Park District Commissioner, was careful to qualify the night’s persistent haranguing about the lack of activities for Maywood youth by mentioning some initiatives his park district is sponsoring, such as a leadership program for young women. Things aren’t all lost, he seemed to be implying. “We all have to come together as one whole community!” he said.

Commissioner William Hampton speaks to gatherers.

As it became clear that this collective prayer gathering would go well into the night, I left, walking in the direction of 1st Avenue, toward the Phoenix Rising sculpture and the Fred Hampton Pool and the baseball diamond overran by dandelions. Debra Spears’s voice trailed me, its invisible frequency colliding with Hampton’s bronze bust and dipping into relative silence before an older, much more casual congregation of people (seated at picnic tables across the street from the Way Back Inn) could hear its resonance.

According to a WHBF-TV 4 report, the Maywood couple accused of murdering one-year-old Bryeon Hunter before dumping his body into the Des Plaines River have both pleaded not guilty. So far, authorities are in the process of confirming the DNA on the body found by Westchester resident Robert Larson earlier this month. Lakesha Baker, the mother of Hunter, is presently held without bond, while her boyfriend and alleged accomplice, Michael Scott, has a bond set for $750,000. For more information, click here.

By Michael Romain

Chief Tim Curry agreed to allow me the opportunity to ride along with him for a few hours last Friday. This idea was sparked by a MAPS (Maywood Alternative Policing Strategies) meeting that I’d observed. During the meeting, a few outspoken residents had the room in a frenzy as they complained about how Curry’s department was doing little to nothing to respond to citizens’ concerns. Some accused the department of leaking their information to criminals. Curry had gotten rather defensive, leading me to interpret his reaction as verification of the kind of scathing unresponsiveness they were complaining about.

This was until I spoke with the Chief for more than an hour afterward and he told me that the purpose of the MAPS meetings is not to recreate the setting of a Commission or Board meeting, but to provide a forum for which citizens can come up with self-policing strategies among themselves, with the occasional input and supplementary support of the police. Curry was intent on emphasizing that his defensiveness that night wasn’t ordinary and that he has a much better working relationship with the residents who regularly attend the MAPS meetings. During the meeting, Curry even polled the group, asking the attendees how many of them had his personal cellphone number. Most sheepishly raised their hands.

Afterward, he said that he’s handed out cell phones and video cameras to residents who’ve complained about the amount of drug and criminal activity on their blocks. When the residents would receive the equipment (thus transferring the burden of proof-gathering from the police to the residents themselves), Curry said that their vigilance would often times magically disappear.

“What happened to all of that activity that you were talking about?” he said rhetorically. Curry’s frustration seemed less with the fact that the residents were complaining than with many residents’ collective apathy and the cynicism that often accompanies it. Residents, he seemed to be saying, are many times quicker to complain about the police (often without understanding their tight resource constraints) than work with them.

“On any given night, there are 4-6 full-time police officers on the streets,” he said. During school days, practically the entire Maywood Police Department is out walking Proviso East students home. Add the resource constraint on top of the taint of corruption with which the Department is stigmatized and Curry and his officers have quite a burden on their backs.

“I’ve worked very, very hard to erase that stigma,” Curry said. “A lot of it stems from stuff that happened in the past. We have a lot of fresh faces on this department, though, and they know I don’t stand for that,” he said. I suddenly began to understand Curry’s frustration. “I ride my guys hard and they know if they’re not cutting it, I’ll replace them. But if I know that they’re doing the right thing, I’ll go to bat for them all the way,” he said. “And they know that, too.”

And so a ride-around was planned two weeks in advance for around 2:30 pm, about the time school lets out, to see what the Maywood Police Department has to deal with everyday, on top of regular calls they may receive while out walking the kids home.

Unfortunately, the Friday we scheduled was the last day of the school year and students were released well before 2:30. Little did I or Curry know how insignificant this scheduling conflict would prove to be with respect to the Chief’s intentions of illustrating his department’s constraints. That much would be well established before I even showed up. This is the first part of my account of that day.

The Prelude

By June 1st, rough video footage documenting a massive fight that occurred at Proviso East on Friday, May 31st, the last day of school, surfaced on Facebook. It had already been shared nearly 400 times, garnering almost as many ‘likes’ (profanity, names and faces have been blacked out):

The following are several screenshots taken of the video:

Part I: Too Calm for Comfort

~2:30 pm – The Chief greets me in the station lobby. He’s in a rush. He directs me to follow him into his office. “You’re my shadow,” he says. On the way, we walk past a few officers dealing with a distraught woman who appears to be high. She’s irate, wildly complaining about a possible theft while she was out of town. I don’t know whether she voluntarily showed up at the station or was forcibly brought there by police.

The office is austere and rather ugly. The walls are painted a light blue. They clash with the floor’s blue, confetti-accented ceramic tiling. Curry doesn’t seem to have impressed much of his personality on the room save for a leather-bound Bible and a small transparent glass plate bearing the Chief’s name and a verse written above it — Proverbs 3:6: “In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths.”

I watch the Chief in silence as he types out an email to the Mayor and the Board about the big fight. “Anytime something big and significant happens, I have to email the Village Board and the manager,” he says.

“Today was the last day of school?” I ask. The Chief confirms that it is.

After he’s finished polishing the email message, he reads it aloud.

“Today, at approximately 9:30 am, as students were leaving school…” My mind drifts as he reads, catching only the most salacious bits of information. Upwards of 300 kids involved…10-15 arrested…3 sent to Loyola for minor injuries. The fighting began at the school and radiated as far west as 17th Avenue, pulsating all the way to Maywood Drive. As of yet, there is no known cause. Over 40 sheriff deputies and police officers from neighboring villages such as Oak Park and Westchester were deployed to the disturbance. Practically the entire Maywood Police Department is tied up dealing with the kids.

Curry tells me a harrowing story of his own encounter with a young girl whom he’d escorted home.  The girl’s nose was bloodied and she appeared to have been involved in the fighting. By taking her to her apartment, the Chief thought he was protecting her from the crowd. A minute later, however, the girl returned to the fighting wielding two chef knives and running toward a crowd of about 100 kids. “I’m in a dilemma,” the Chief says as he recalls the experience. “What’s my dilemma?” he asks, putting me to the test. “Either risk getting stabbed yourself or watch the girl stab someone else,” I say.

Fortunately, a female officer blindsided the girl and authorities took her into custody. When I ask whether or not the fighting was gang-related, Curry says he isn’t sure. “Very few people we have in custody appear to be involved in a gang,” he says, which is a troubling indicator that perhaps this kind of mass aggression is a symptom of a troubling norm.

“The kids [at Proviso] have been so unruly that for the past several years, we’ve had to focus our entire resources on the problem and escort them home everyday just to maintain safety while students walk home. But then you get parents who don’t bring their children home who have a negative outlook as to how we treat their children when we walk them home,” Curry says.

Once the email is sent, we leave the office and head toward Curry’s all-black SUV.

~2:40 pm – Curry drives a block from the police station to meet a man who appears to be a detective about a personnel matter. The two talk for a few minutes before Curry returns to the SUV and drives back to the station. I stay in the vehicle while he goes inside.

Curry handles a personnel matter with another law enforcement official.

~2:52 pm – “You didn’t want to observe roll call did you (roll is called at the beginning of each shift)?” he asks when he returns. I tell him that he shouldn’t alter his schedule on account of me. “Do what you’d do if I wasn’t around,” I tell him. It’s an impractical suggestion, but Curry seems intent on doing just this. For instance, he didn’t tell any of the officers who I am. The nondisclosure appears to go over rather well. Most of the officers I encounter simply nod when their boss introduces me,  leaving me to guess who exactly they think I am. If any are puzzled or uncomfortable, they don’t show it.

Curry opts to skip roll call, as is his custom.

“Crime would hit us while officers were in the station for roll call, so we’d have to get creative,” he said. Typically, there’s an officer on the street during roll call in order to confound would-be criminals.

As we drive down Oak toward 1st Avenue, Curry says that he’s personally written two parking tickets today. This becomes a theme — the Chief, it appears, does all kinds of un-chiefly things on any given day. I suspect that at least part of this show of humility is rather exaggerated, despite his best efforts to ‘keep it real.’ But then I think back to his account of the girl accosting him with a knife and inquire silently how many other police chiefs would even put themselves in that situation.

The other factor that leads me to re-think my suspicion that Curry’s humility is something of an act is his personality — which may be among the most unassuming and laid-back on the entire force. He takes pride in how accessible he is, a merit that’s often premised on an unpretentiousness he seems to work hard to cultivate. While talking with him outside of Neighborhood United Church on 19th and Washington after the MAPS meeting described above, a young woman walking her kids approached us. “Hey Tim,” she said, without breaking stride. Another young man, who obviously knew Curry, moseyed up to us while eating a bag of chips before mumbling a few indecipherable words and walking on.

Curry is about average height, several inches under six feet. When he has them on, he sometimes wears his glasses low on his nose, a gesture that makes him look professorial, avuncular. The low-hanging glasses have the effect of softening a countenance that’s not very gruff to begin with. Although Curry has to at least be in his fifties or closely approaching them (I never asked his age, but am assuming from his 28 years on the force), he has the face of someone much younger. And the sincerity (at least as it appeared to me during the times I’ve been around him) of a twenty-something-year-old rookie. It means more than it appears on the surface when I say that he really does seem to want to do the right thing, to want to ‘come correct,’ if you will. And he manages to exude this intention without coming off as self-righteous or unreasonably pure.

At one point on our ride-around, while Curry was observing another officer during a routine traffic stop, the driver in the offending vehicle, pulled over for driving in a parking lane, noticed the Chief across the street. The ticketing officer’s voice came over the dispatch. “He says he knows the Chief.” Without pause, Curry laughed, clicked and dispatched back: “Well, if he knows the Chief he wouldn’t be saying he knows the Chief. I don’t play that” he said in jest, but not jokingly. He was serious.

Curry observes a routine traffic stop.

Curry shows an eagerness (but not an overeagerness) to be open and honest which leads me to believe that he would’ve said the same thing if I weren’t with him. However, he doesn’t seem to be above waiving off traffic tickets. There are rules and then there are loyalties and Curry doesn’t appear too rigid a devotee of either side — all and all, a rather healthy personality. “I know Obama,” Curry said (meaning: ‘it aint happenin’). We both laughed as he drove away from the scene, but not before he peered to see if he indeed knew the person in the car. A quick pause. “I don’t know him!” he said.

~2:56 pm – “Hey fellas, come here!” Curry drives up on a group of young men loitering and defying the Village’s ‘No Sagging’ ordinance outside of Maywood Plaza on 11th and Madison. The boys show no reverence, at one point glaring at me through the truck. “Why you taking pictures?” one of them says as he walks off.

Curry breaking up a group of young men loitering.

~3:02 pm – As we’re driving south on North Maywood Drive, we hear fireworks. “We’re still a long way off from the 4th,” Curry says, driving toward the sound. It turns out to be nothing. “Dispatch doesn’t know I’m out here doing this,” he says, addressing some of the complaints that he hears from residents about the lack of a police presence. It’s a charge to which he takes slight offense.

Curry’s typical retort is that some residents will complain about the police not being on the streets and, in the same breath, complain about a parking ticket they were issued. He says that a lot of what his department does, particularly the positive stuff, goes unnoticed. Regarding his response to the fireworks, he says, “It’s service that doesn’t go in the books.” According to the Chief, the Maywood Police Department booked about 27,000 service calls last year.

~3:04 pm – As we’re driving on 16th and Madison, Curry spots a guy talking on a cell phone in a red pickup truck parked out in front of an apartment known for drug traffic. Curry slows to a stop. “What are you doing here?” he says. The man in the pickup truck immediately takes offense, which is understandable. “What do you mean what am I doing here?” Curry and the man go back and forth. One feeling slighted and demeaned by the cop’s assumption of criminality and the other alarmed by the man’s aggression. It would seem that both have relatively reasonable justifications for their behavior. I would be at least annoyed, if not a bit outraged, if I were the man, whose mere presence is under suspicion; and yet, if I were Curry, the man’s presence outside of the drug apartment would touch off all kinds of police instincts. It’s a common dilemma that doesn’t always end reasonably.

When the man gets out of the truck, I reach for the door handle. “Don’t shoot me,” the man says to Curry, extending his arms, walking slowly toward the truck. “Would you invest in Starbucks ten years ago if you knew what it would be now?” Curry and I both nod in confusion, both of us perplexed and disarmed.

“This is what I was doing,” the man says. He hands the Chief three sample packages of Organo Gold coffee. “I sale this,” he says, before going into his pitch. The man is part of a crew doing renovations on the apartment building. “I’m working on this building, but I can’t come down a lot, because they like to play cowboy.” He tells us to go online to his website before anxiously jogging back to his truck. “Hold on, don’t shoot me,” the man says. His refrain takes on the hilarity of a standup comic’s routine. The man returns with a business card.

An Organo Gold coffee sample sits on the dispatch box.

“Good luck with your business,” Curry says. “If I like your product I’ll give you a call” (one of the rare moments during my time with the Chief in which something he said signaled my B.S. detector). As we drive away, Curry says that he encounters that kind of confrontation all the time. Most times, however, it doesn’t end that well.

~3:10 pm – We’re riding down 13th and Randolph. There are children out playing catch, running the sidewalks. “This has got to be one of the most peaceful Friday [afternoons] I’ve ever seen,” he says. It’s unusually placid to be so warm, but instead of putting him at ease, Curry takes it to be a potential foreboding. He’s still on an emotional high from this morning’s frenzy at Proviso. “So now, I’m still anticipating something….Where did all those kids go?” VFP

The Forest Park Review has just published more information on the fight last week that involved over 300 Proviso East schoolchildren. Law enforcement officials are still looking for tips from students involved, parents and anyone else who may be able to shed light on the fight’s origins. Below is a short excerpt from the story. To read more, click here:

“A fight at Proviso East High School on the last day of school May 30, involved more than 300 students and spilled into the streets of Maywood for several hours, Police Chief Tim Curry confirmed Thursday. At least ten students were arrested, including a girl wielding two chef’s knives who had been previously knocked down and stomped by other students.

Curry said another girl was struck over the eye with a lock and two others received minor injuries. The three injured students were taken to Loyola Medical Center. More than 40 officers from neighboring agencies were called to the scene including Oak Park, Forest Park, Westchester, Bellwood and Broadview. Sheriff’s police were also summoned.

Although neither the school nor District 209 sent any kind of communication to parents describing what had happened, Curry said it was important for parents to know what happened.

‘It didn’t happen in the school. This was within the jurisdiction of law enforcement,” Curry said. ‘But the parents, if they don’t know they should know. They should be down knocking at our door asking what can we do to help?’”

By Michael Romain

~3:10 pm — As we’re riding down 9th Avenue, Curry recalls the moment he got dispatch of the big fight that happened hours earlier. He was getting his squad car washed on 4th and Lake. “You know when you’re at the car wash and your car goes in, you’re pretty much stuck there,” he says — yet another instance of how things can turn on a dime.

We cross the tracks, the mini-iconic Maywood water tower hulking in my periphery, but I don’t pay it much attention. Prompted by the talk of cars, I ask Curry about the proposal that had been brought up at the most recent LLOC meeting. The Village is considering leasing three new squad cars for the department. “How’s the present fleet?” I ask. As I say this, we cruise by the car wash where Curry had gotten momentarily stuck.

“Our newest cars are four years old,” he says. “They get no rest…they’ve got to constantly be repaired and replaced.” The repairs and the replacements, however, don’t occur as frequently as they should. Curry says that the cars are sorely needed, but the Village doesn’t have the money to buy them. So, at the LLOC meeting, Village Manager William Barlow announced a proposal “to pledge the Working Capital Fund as collateral” for the leasing of the cars.”

~3:17 pm — “Let me offer my condolences.” We’re on the north side of the Village, near the home of someone whose recently passed. He stops the car in front of the house and hops out. He’s back in less than three minutes. The funeral was today at Rock of Ages, but Curry couldn’t attend due to the fighting. His patrol of the north side is typically uneventful, a good thing.

~3:21 pm — As he’s approaching 3rd and Walton, Curry gets dispatch of somebody tearing down some signs at 244 S. 11th. “Vandalism?” I ask. “Not sure yet,” he says. It could be vandalism or the person could be removing the signs for legitimate reasons. “A lot of times, we’ll get calls, but the exact nature of the calls aren’t accurate,” he says. As we’re driving to the call, we hear over dispatch that Maywood police have gone into neighboring Broadview to assist with something. “Broadview helped us out, now we’re over there helping them out.”

~3:23 pm — We get diverted to 3rd and Oak for a more interesting call regarding open alcohol. But when we arrive at Oak, there doesn’t appear to be anyone on the scene.  As Curry is surveying the vicinity, another dispatch about a possible mother-son dispute at Burger King on 1st and Lake crackles in the car. “We’re divvying all this up between 6 cars,” Curry says as he speeds to the scene. He notes that he typically stays behind on calls like this. The chief isn’t supposed to be the first to respond.

~3:24 pm — “23,” Curry reports into his receiver. “That means we’re here,” he says before jumping out of the vehicle. I stay behind in the SUV. After some minutes, Curry’s voice materializes on the dispatch: “Disregard. Nothing pressing going on, but the manager’s going to discuss something with me.” As I’m hearing this, another officer pulls up beside Curry’s vehicle and gets out his car to go inside. Just as soon as he enters, he exits and drives off. When Curry returns, there’s nothing much to report. The mother and son friction happened in the drive-thru. The two have long since left the premises.

~3:30 pm — We’re driving westbound on Madison Street. I asked Curry how he delegates his attention, since there can be so many things happening at once. “It depends,” he says. “You never know how you’re going to be surprised in this job.” We come up on a traffic stop on the corner of 9th and Madison. “I’m about to go on talk-around,” Curry says. ‘Talk-Around’ is short for direct dispatch communication with another officer. The Chief wants to know the cause of the stop. The driver was stopped for driving in a parking lane. This is an ordinance violation. (Read more on the details of this stop here).

As we’re leaving the traffic stop, Curry talks about a critical element of police procedure that often goes unnoticed. Reporting something as minor as a traffic stop can take between 30-60 minutes. A DUI might take an officer out of rotation for as many as four hours. “If something big happens, everything would have to stop,” Curry says. Hearing this, I wonder how anyone can cope with the chronic arrhythmia of policing in a place like Maywood, which has some of the homey aspects of a Mayberry intertwined with some of the sinister aspects of a Compton. And then it hits me that trying to keep some semblance of balance and order in a place like this is like trying to modulate the personality of a schizophrenic or a manic depressive. It’s a thankless job, about as hard to appreciate as swallowing a pill. VFP

Pioneer Local has reported the arrests of two men, one from Bellwood and one from Lombard, allegedly involved in a string of burglaries in nearby River Forest. Here’s an excerpt from that article:

“RIVER FOREST — Police investigating several recent burglaries arrested two men in Maywood after the car they were driving matched the description of a car used in the previous crimes.

Jeremy Seaton, 20, of Lombard, and Christopher Lukes, 22, of Bellwood are charged with residential burglary. Seaton is being held in lieu of $30,000 bond, Lukes in lieu of $20,000 bond. Both men have preliminary hearings June 20 at the Maybrook Courthouse.

Lukes was paroled in December 2011, from a previous residential burglary conviction, as well as possession of a stolen firearm.

Deputy Chief James O’Shea said police responded to the 500 block of River Oaks on June 11 after a witness reported seeing a person ‘walking through a yard while carrying a guitar.’ The man entered a green Buick parked on Lake Street.”

To read more, click here.

Jeremy Seaton, 20, of Lombard, is charged with residential burglary. Seaton is being held in lieu of $30,000 bond. Photo and caption courtesy of Pioneer Local.

The Chicago Tribune reported yesterday that three young Maywood men have been charged with the murder of 19-year-old college student DaShamone McCarty. Here’s an excerpt:

“Denzel Edwards, 20, of the 2100 block of South 2nd Avenue, and Larry Ankum, 28, of the 2100 block of South 4th Avenue were each charged with first degree murder, police said.

Edwards appeared in court on June 22 and is being held on a $750,000 bond while Ankum is expected to appear in bond court Monday morning at the Maybrook Courthouse in Maywood, police said.

During the investigation, police determined that another passenger riding in the same car with  McCarty had a handgun and drugs. The passenger, Deaundre Carey, 20, of the 2100 block of South 4th Avenue, was charged with unlawful use of a weapon and is currently out on bond, police said.”

For more information, click here.

The Sun-Times Media Wire reported on July 2, 2013, that Maywood Deputy Police Chief Brian Black pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice charges stemming from a 2010 incident:

“A west suburban deputy police chief pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice Tuesday for lying to police about a 2010 incident in which he allegedly struck a young man in the head with his gun.

Maywood Deputy Chief Brian Black, who was 36 at the time, was charged with obstruction of justice and felony disorderly conduct in November 2010, according to the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office.

On Tuesday, Black pleaded guilty to one felony charge of obstruction, and Judge Thomas Gainer sentenced him to 12 months of probation, state’s attorney’s office spokeswoman Tandra Simonton said.

The charges followed an off-duty incident in November 2010 in which Black struck his friend in the head with a pistol, then told police the victim tried to carjack him, prosecutors said at the time of his initial court appearance.”

Click here to read more.

A December 20, 2010, article published online by the West Suburban Journal details the incident and provides information on Mr. Black’s personal biography. Click here to read more. VFP

Sunday – The Chicago Tribune reported today that “Maywood investigators are searching for a vehicle that was involved in a hit-and-run crash that killed a Bellwood motorcyclist.” According to the report:

“The accident happened at about 10 p.m. Sunday on the 2000 block of South Fifth Avenue, said Maywood Interim Police Chief Elijah Willis.

Dawhawn Davis, 24, of the 3700 block of Georgina Lane, was pronounced dead at 1:24 a.m. at Loyola University Medical Center, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

No other information was immediately available.”

If you know anything, call (708) 450-4472. If you wish to remain anonymous, dial *67 after the number.

According to CBS 2 Chicago (via a report published on http://www.chicagochronicle.com), police have apprehended a suspect in a fatal hit-and-run crash that killed 24-year-old Dashawn J. Davis while he was traveling in the area of South 5th Avenue and Harvard on Sunday night. The woman fled the scene of the accident. Davis was rushed to Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, where medical officials declared him dead at 1:24 am the next day.

According to the Sun Times Media Wire:

“A Wednesday autopsy determined Davis died from multiple blunt force injuries from a motorcycle accident and the death was ruled an accident, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office.

An anonymous tipster gave police the license plate of the vehicle, police said. The driver, Tiffany L. Jenkins, surrendered to police when she learned from a friend that officers were looking for her, police said.

Jenkins, 33, of Merrill, Wis., was charged with leaving the scene of an accident causing great bodily harm or death, driving on a revoked license and failing to yield, police said.

Jenkins is expected in bond court at 9 a.m. Thursday in Maywood.” VFP

The Sun-Times Media Wire reported yesterday, July 14, that a Glendale Heights man, Marquise Coleman, 33, died on Saturday night after being “shot multiple times” at 2039 S. 12th Ave. He was taken to Loyola University Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 8:17 pm, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office. The report stated, “Maywood police could not be immediately reached for comments Sunday morning.”

At a press conference he convened this morning to discuss the importance of collaboration between law enforcement and residents, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said that a tip submitted via a new online-based tips feature helped lead to the capture of Larry Ankum and Denzel Edwards, both of whom were subsequently charged with the murder of college student DeShamone McCarthy, who was killed two months ago.

According to a report by CBS Chicago:

“Two weeks after he was shot, sheriff’s police received an anonymous tip through their website, and passed that information on to Maywood police.

That information led to the arrest of 28-year-old Larry Ankum, who was charged with murder, and has been in custody since late June. A second man, 20-year-old Denzel Edwards, also was charged with murder.

Ankum was being held without bond. Edwards’ bond was set at $750,000, according to jail records.

Dart said the sheriff’s office has received scores of tips since launching the program in April. He said a big problem with solving crimes is people being reluctant to come forward with information, and doing so anonymously online is more comfortable for some people.

‘I think it allows people to feel even more anonymous,’ Dart said.

Maywood Police Cmdr. Elijah Willis said, ‘I think it’s going to be a big asset to a lot of the agencies.’”

The news of the tip comes less than a month after the Village passed an ordinance allowing the Cook County Sheriff’s department to establish an office of independent inspector general in Maywood, with the purpose of investigating public corruption. The tips system can be accessed at cookcountysheriff.org.  VFP