CHICAGOLAND: Gang Members Hold News Conference To Put Police
Posted: Fri Sep 03, 2010 4:33 am
CHICAGO - Gang members themselves are the latest to come out against police Supt. Jody Weis' strategy to put pressure on them and curb gang violence.
At 10 a.m., gang members are expected to hold a news conference at the Columbus Park Refectory, at 5701 W. Jackson Blvd. on the city's West Side.
Gang members are also expected to attend another news conference that is being held by local clergy at 11 a.m., at the New Life Christian Ministries of Greater Chicago, 8201 S. Jeffery Blvd.
They are taking issue with Weis' strategy of meeting with gang leaders and warning them of serious consequences if violence continues.
Weis held a meeting with the reputed leaders of several West Side gangs at the Garfield Park Conservatory over the weekend. At the meeting, prosecutors warned that the gang members could be charged under the federal racketeering laws if killings were traced back to gangs with members attending the meeting.
The Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, RICO for short, provides stiffer penalties for acts performed as part of a criminal organization such as the Mafia.
But gang members say they were tricked into coming to the meeting, and that it amounted to harassment.
The Columbus Park news conference is being convened by Jim Allen, a self-identified Vice Lords Nation member. Allen is also identified as the "almighty minister" of an organization called Tha Movement, features a logo with several gang signs in the center surrounded by a circle bearing the message: "Stop the violence. One love."
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An announcement on the blog for Tha Movement says members of the "Lords, Disciples, Kings, Stones, Hustlers, Souls, Cobras, etc." are expected to be at the news conference.
The group is protesting what they call the "unconstitutional, guilty before innocent, premeditated arrest and indictment by Chicago Police hearsay and propaganda tactics," in regard to the threat to use the RICO statute at the "'secret trick meeting' the Chicago Police and others held with whom they deemed to be top gang leaders.
"Tha Movement believes this to be nothing more than the continuation of former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge style tactics of harassment," the announcement says. Burge was convicted this past June of lying about torturing criminal suspects into confessions into the 1970s and 80s.
Some Chicago aldermen, as well as police officers posting on the Second City Cop blog, have blasted Weis' meeting with gang leaders as negotiating with "urban terrorists."
But Allen told Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell that there was no "negotiation." He told Mitchell that when President Barack Obama was in the U.S. Senate, he said he was "willing to sit down with terrorists without preconditions," but the gang leaders were "tricked" into attending the meeting.
The gangs were told they were attending a routine parole hearing when they came to Weis' summit over the weekend.
At 10 a.m., gang members are expected to hold a news conference at the Columbus Park Refectory, at 5701 W. Jackson Blvd. on the city's West Side.
Gang members are also expected to attend another news conference that is being held by local clergy at 11 a.m., at the New Life Christian Ministries of Greater Chicago, 8201 S. Jeffery Blvd.
They are taking issue with Weis' strategy of meeting with gang leaders and warning them of serious consequences if violence continues.
Weis held a meeting with the reputed leaders of several West Side gangs at the Garfield Park Conservatory over the weekend. At the meeting, prosecutors warned that the gang members could be charged under the federal racketeering laws if killings were traced back to gangs with members attending the meeting.
The Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, RICO for short, provides stiffer penalties for acts performed as part of a criminal organization such as the Mafia.
But gang members say they were tricked into coming to the meeting, and that it amounted to harassment.
The Columbus Park news conference is being convened by Jim Allen, a self-identified Vice Lords Nation member. Allen is also identified as the "almighty minister" of an organization called Tha Movement, features a logo with several gang signs in the center surrounded by a circle bearing the message: "Stop the violence. One love."
CHICAGOLAND: Gang Members Hold News...
Discovery Channel Hostage Taker Dead
Man Plunges from 39-Story Building and...
An announcement on the blog for Tha Movement says members of the "Lords, Disciples, Kings, Stones, Hustlers, Souls, Cobras, etc." are expected to be at the news conference.
The group is protesting what they call the "unconstitutional, guilty before innocent, premeditated arrest and indictment by Chicago Police hearsay and propaganda tactics," in regard to the threat to use the RICO statute at the "'secret trick meeting' the Chicago Police and others held with whom they deemed to be top gang leaders.
"Tha Movement believes this to be nothing more than the continuation of former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge style tactics of harassment," the announcement says. Burge was convicted this past June of lying about torturing criminal suspects into confessions into the 1970s and 80s.
Some Chicago aldermen, as well as police officers posting on the Second City Cop blog, have blasted Weis' meeting with gang leaders as negotiating with "urban terrorists."
But Allen told Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell that there was no "negotiation." He told Mitchell that when President Barack Obama was in the U.S. Senate, he said he was "willing to sit down with terrorists without preconditions," but the gang leaders were "tricked" into attending the meeting.
The gangs were told they were attending a routine parole hearing when they came to Weis' summit over the weekend.
