Senator Asks FBI For Help In Chicago
Chicago Tribune
July 28, 2010
By: Richard Serrano
In an impassioned appeal to save Chicago from spiraling violence that has left three police officers dead in two months, Sen. Dick Durbin urged the head of the FBI to work closer with local authorities to break rival gangs from continuing to terrorize the city.
"It is just heart-breaking," he said. "We really have to do much more to try to bring this under control.''
The officers deaths followed another shooting on Monday when nine people were wounded at a local bus turnaound as rival gang factions opened fire on one another, and it has led to harsh feelings between City Hall and the local FBI field office in Chicago about how to stop the violence.
"About six weeks ago I attended a funeral in Chicago,'' Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, began as FBI Director Robert Mueller was appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. "It was a young Chicago police officer named Thomas Wortham, 30 years old. He'd served in Iraq, an extraordinary young African-American with a great life ahead of him.''
His voice choking, his eyes moist, Durbin continued. "Gunned down in front of his home – in front of his father's home. His father, a retired policeman. They were armed as security would require and as their jobs required and still he was shot down and killed.''
He moved on to another slaying. ``Last week Michael Bailey, another Chicago policeman, left his detail guarding Mayor Daley and went home at 6:30 in the morning. Was polishing off his new Buick that he couldn't wait to drive around when he retired in just a few weeks. A man came up and shot and killed him.''
Now looking directly at Mueller, the senator said: "We've lost three policemen in Chicago in the last two months. The gun crime there is sadly aggravated by the hot weather. Just terrible the loss of life that we're experiencing.''
He alluded to the public sparring between the mayor and the top FBI official in Chicago over how to fight the gangs, which Durbin said "reflected the frustration they both feel.''
"Everybody's trying everything they can think of and my request to you is, can you help us in finding some new ways to go after the illegal guns in Chicago, the violence on our street? Is there something the FBI can do to help us in the city?"
Mueller said he was familiar with the three deaths, and had spoken with Chicago police superintendent Jody Weis about what more can be done.
"We have tried across the country a variety of techniques,'' Mueller said. "My belief is that in Chicago we've tried just about every one of them.'' He mentioned new and advanced intelligence-gathering techniques ``to focus on the shooters and put them behind bars.''
But Mueller conceded that so far, "in comparison to the extent of the problem, it's inadequate.'' He pledged that in the future, "we'll do what we can.''
Last week Chicago Mayor Richard Daley voiced frustration over how long it took for the FBI to make some two dozen federal gun trafficking arrests. "Well, finally, thank God, they did it,'' the exasperated mayor said.
That prompted Robert Grant, special agent-in-charge of the Chicago FBI field office, to respond that the mayor had demoralized FBI agents who have been working hard to fight the gangs.
Then Daley explained that he did not mean to insult the agents. Rather, he said, he grew impatient with the pace of the FBI investigation that he said went on for up to two years. ``They'd come in and talk to me about their investigation,'' Daley said. ``I want it completed right away. I'm like that, you know that.''
The mayor added, ``It wasn't derogatory to them.''
In an impassioned appeal to save Chicago from spiraling violence that has left three police officers dead in two months, Sen. Dick Durbin urged the head of the FBI to work closer with local authorities to break rival gangs from continuing to terrorize the city.
"It is just heart-breaking," he said. "We really have to do much more to try to bring this under control.''
The officers deaths followed another shooting on Monday when nine people were wounded at a local bus turnaound as rival gang factions opened fire on one another, and it has led to harsh feelings between City Hall and the local FBI field office in Chicago about how to stop the violence.
"About six weeks ago I attended a funeral in Chicago,'' Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, began as FBI Director Robert Mueller was appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. "It was a young Chicago police officer named Thomas Wortham, 30 years old. He'd served in Iraq, an extraordinary young African-American with a great life ahead of him.''
His voice choking, his eyes moist, Durbin continued. "Gunned down in front of his home – in front of his father's home. His father, a retired policeman. They were armed as security would require and as their jobs required and still he was shot down and killed.''
He moved on to another slaying. ``Last week Michael Bailey, another Chicago policeman, left his detail guarding Mayor Daley and went home at 6:30 in the morning. Was polishing off his new Buick that he couldn't wait to drive around when he retired in just a few weeks. A man came up and shot and killed him.''
Now looking directly at Mueller, the senator said: "We've lost three policemen in Chicago in the last two months. The gun crime there is sadly aggravated by the hot weather. Just terrible the loss of life that we're experiencing.''
He alluded to the public sparring between the mayor and the top FBI official in Chicago over how to fight the gangs, which Durbin said "reflected the frustration they both feel.''
"Everybody's trying everything they can think of and my request to you is, can you help us in finding some new ways to go after the illegal guns in Chicago, the violence on our street? Is there something the FBI can do to help us in the city?"
Mueller said he was familiar with the three deaths, and had spoken with Chicago police superintendent Jody Weis about what more can be done.
"We have tried across the country a variety of techniques,'' Mueller said. "My belief is that in Chicago we've tried just about every one of them.'' He mentioned new and advanced intelligence-gathering techniques ``to focus on the shooters and put them behind bars.''
But Mueller conceded that so far, "in comparison to the extent of the problem, it's inadequate.'' He pledged that in the future, "we'll do what we can.''
Last week Chicago Mayor Richard Daley voiced frustration over how long it took for the FBI to make some two dozen federal gun trafficking arrests. "Well, finally, thank God, they did it,'' the exasperated mayor said.
That prompted Robert Grant, special agent-in-charge of the Chicago FBI field office, to respond that the mayor had demoralized FBI agents who have been working hard to fight the gangs.
Then Daley explained that he did not mean to insult the agents. Rather, he said, he grew impatient with the pace of the FBI investigation that he said went on for up to two years. ``They'd come in and talk to me about their investigation,'' Daley said. ``I want it completed right away. I'm like that, you know that.''
The mayor added, ``It wasn't derogatory to them.''