Nine suspected gang members were arrested Saturday as Chicago police moved to shut down an open-air heroin market in the East Garfield Park neighborhood.
First Deputy Superintendent Al Wysinger said residents’ complaints about violence at the intersection of Hamlin and Ohio streets prompted a two-month investigation of drug sales there, leading to the arrests, $6,700 in cash and several grams of heroin worth about $3,000 on the street.
It wasn’t an enormous haul as far as coordinated drug busts go. But what Wysinger said next illustrated the huge neighborhood uncertainties that sometimes accompany such police activity:
It will be up to the community to make sure the drug dealers don’t return.
“This is the community’s block,” Wysinger said as he stood at the intersection Saturday afternoon. “It does not belong to the gang bangers, the drug dealers. It’s theirs. We’ve taken it back and we’re going to turn it over to them.”
Police Supt. Garry McCarthy has spoken in the past about the unintended problems sometimes caused by breaking up narcotics operations. Unless police maintain a presence at the location and social service agencies are brought in, violence may increase as a new crop of drug dealers fight for control, McCarthy has noted.
Wysinger pointed out another hard reality in high-crime neighborhoods: With limited resources, “we can’t be every place all the time.”
“You’re going to see a stepped-up police presence initially, but we’re going to wean it back and actually turn it over to the community,” Wysinger said, adding that police have warrants out for three other suspects.
Ald. Walter Burnett Jr., 27th, said the arrests are a good first step. But before residents feel confident enough to stand up to the gangs, they need assurances the police will stay on the case after the TV cameras leave, he said.
“People aren’t afraid if they know they’ve got back-up,” Burnett said
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