Reputed gang members in Elgin had an unusual run-in with police last week. Rather than being taken into custody or even tersely questioned, the gang members each were simply given a sheet of paper. "Most of them didn't understand," Elgin Police Sgt. Jim Lalley said. "They were left behind holding a piece of paper, and they had no idea what it was."
...The gang members were served with summonses, ordering them to appear in civil court next month. The Elgin Latin Kings weren't being arrested. But they were being sued.
Elgin is seeking monetary damages from the gang, but the officials said the real value was the part of the suit that would bar the named gang members from associating with one another.
...The gang members were served with summonses, ordering them to appear in civil court next month. The Elgin Latin Kings weren't being arrested. But they were being sued.
Elgin is seeking monetary damages from the gang, but the officials said the real value was the part of the suit that would bar the named gang members from associating with one another.
Read the entire story here. What do you think: would this be an effective gang-fighting tool in Uptown?
Sounds good to me and glad to see our near counties doing something about gangs in their areas. Too bad Chicago can`t learn from them. Where is our civil ban on association. It surely put a bite on the punks that we all seeing hanging around our Uptown streets.
ReplyDeleteThis only shows desperation. The threat of civil suit is never as effective a deterrent as a criminal prosecution. The civil court system and the county sheriff just don't have resources to take gangsters off the streets.
ReplyDeletePlus, gangsters won't care about owing money in a civil judgments.
JQL,
ReplyDeleteYou are missing the point. The fact that the bangers are not threatened by the civil suit is good, since they will probably ignore it. That means a default judgment. If there is a judgment and the injunction against associating (also easier in a default situation) you can arrest them for nothing more than standing around with their homies. Once that becomes clear, it starts to make sense to move out of Elgin, or anywhere else the court has jurisdiction.
This is ultimately a tactic to get the gangbangers to move on. If successful it will probably lead to more killing (see, e.g. destruction of CHA high rises and impact on other communities), but not in Elgin.
Cook County is pretty big. If a Cook County court did this, and DuPage, and Will, and Lake, and McHenry, and Kane, you'd have bangers moving to Indiana, Wisconsin, or Central Illinois. But not around here . . .
"if there is a judgment and the injunction against associating (also easier in a default situation) you can arrest them for nothing more than standing around with their homies."
ReplyDeleteThe civil court system is not an efficient forum to get people arrested. A default judgment in a civil case is a worthless piece of paper if the defendant has no assets to come after. While arrest for contempt of court is possible, it's very rare. Gangsters will quickly find that out.
The better option is to reform the local laws to make it easier to prosecute gangsters. Of course, now we're talking politics.