Where Is The Law?
'A Dire Public Safety Debacle:' Malfeasance And Ineptitude In Harvey's Police Department 

In 2006, the Daily Southtown conducted a wide-ranging investigation into Harvey's police department and city hall. The stories resulted in independent probes by the State Police and Cook County prosecutors — and later a federal investigation — as well as a rebuke of the city's mayor by then-Sen. Barack Obama during the runup to his presidential campaign. The Cook County Sheriff's Department would later take over several open cases in the city.

• The Southtown revealed hundreds of rape cases were filed away in the basement without investigation.

• Police department figures were found to have gang connections.

• The Southtown would eventually sue the city of Harvey over public records and win the case in court. The records revealed shocking misuse of tax money, including city funds spent on furs and jewelry for the mayor.

The collection of stories and the resulting editorials also netted the newspaper half-a-dozen investigative and public service reporting awards.  

The college student was beaten and robbed. The 11-year-old sister called 911. Harvey police ignored her.
They brushed off Mom, too, who got so mad ...

Mom Found The Perps Herself

Published in the Daily Southtown, July 23, 2006

By Lauren FitzPatrick

When Marice Wall's son was jumped in a park near her Harvey neighborhood, children came to her home to tell her. Before running to help, Wall told her 11-year-old daughter to call 911.

But Harvey police didn't show up. Instead, Wall said, a dispatcher told the girl children shouldn't dial 911 because the department receives too many prank calls.

Furious, the mother dialed 911 herself - twice, she says - only to wait more than half an hour for officers to arrive. A less-than-zealous effort by Harvey police to track down the perpetrators further enraged this mother and former legal assistant.

"The cops are even complaining they don't have the help," Wall said. "They're frustrated. They're like, 'Ma'am, we're only allowed to give you so many minutes.'"

So she took it upon herself to do the detective work and find the young men who attacked her son. Wall took down the license number of the getaway car, found addresses of the boys her 21-year-old son identified and tried to hand over her findings to Harvey police.

Harvey officers and detectives told her they're busy with other cases, Wall told the Southtown.

"They're busy. That's crap. They are busy? I'm a taxpayer. I'm the one doing all your work," Wall said.

She enlisted the help of police officers from neighboring suburbs. One of the suspects is in custody, but two others remain on the loose.

Now she's adding her voice to the ranks of those who want Harvey 's police department to get outside assistance and supervision. That call has been led by U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. and includes state lawmakers.

The crime

On July 7, Marcus Abston, a senior at Southern Illinois University, was using his laptop computer at Riverside Park on 148th Street about 4 p.m. when two young men approached him from behind. He recognized them from the neighborhood. They asked if he could get the Internet on his computer, Abston said, then one punched him in the back of his head and tried to trip him while the other grabbed the computer and ran.

Abston swung back and chased after his computer. A getaway car was waiting on East Riverside Street. Abston, recognizing the driver as a high school classmate, pleaded with him to stop, Wall said. Abston held onto the car and was dragged for about a block as the car sped away.

Meanwhile, as Wall ran to the park to find her son, 11-year-old Marissa Abston dialed 911 and tried to tell them what happened. Instead of dispatching officers, the 911 operators told the girl to get her mother.

Wall found the dazed young man as he walked home. Abston's left hand was skinned. An urgent care clinic later dressed his wounds and diagnosed him with a concussion, according to Wall.

Home with her son, Wall called 911 herself. She said the call was ignored. Twenty minutes later, she said, her second call was met with a response: "Oh, I didn't know that someone was getting beat up. We'll send someone right out."

Though Abston gave police descriptions and names of his attackers, Wall said the officers told her they didn't have much time to dedicate to this crime.

Harvey officials did not return calls placed by the Southtown to ask questions and request the 911 tapes or transcripts.

Finding help elsewhere

Wall decided to look outside Harvey for help. She called the South Holland police later that night because she lives so close to its border.

"They took an interest in ... questioning my son with respect and even drove around to see if they could at least spot the car that was used in the robbery," she said.

The robbery took place in Harvey, but the getaway car sped into South Holland.

"They informed me that they would keep an eye out for the men and the car, although it's out of their jurisdiction," Wall said.

South Holland Chief Warren Millsaps said one of his patrol officers drove Wall and her son back to the scene about 4 a.m. Together, they checked Dumpsters for the computer and looked around for suspects.

"She told us she was having a hard time getting the case investigated. She wanted somebody to respond because Harvey was busy. Anytime something happens in a bordering community, our officers are always on the lookout," he said, explaining that cleaning up the streets, no matter what town, helps all the surrounding neighborhoods.

Arrest made

Wall also called an acquaintance who works as a Markham Park District officer and asked for help. One of the suspects, 18-year-old Terrell Jones, tried to sell the computer to the off-duty Markham officer, according to a Harvey police report dated July 8.

Jones, of the 14900 block of Markham Drive, was arrested after Abston and the officer identified him. Charged with robbery, Jones is due in court July 26. Harvey police since have confiscated the getaway car, according to Harvey police Detective William Martin.

But police haven't questioned the two others involved, he said, because they can't be found.

"We got the car. We got the guy in jail. We're looking for two other people; we're looking all over Harvey," Martin said.

Wall said the more she has publicized what happened to her son, the more responsive Harvey has been. Mayor Eric Kellogg has called to apologize, she said.

"Like I told (the mayor), that's fine. But I want an arrest and a court date," she said.

Challenge Awaits A Man Who Would Be Great

This column was published the Sunday before Barack Obama visited a Harvey church. By that time, his celebrity had grown immensely and thousands were expected. There was much anticipation about Obama's expected run for president. The mayor of Harvey was supposed to appear on the platform with the senator. Instead, he was seated in the audience and Obama delivered a stern rebuke about corruption and self-serving behavior in office.

Published in the Daily Southtown, Jan. 14, 2007

By Dennis Robaugh

A web of deception, crime and misery covers the city of Harvey. At the center, doing the spinning, is Mayor Eric Kellogg.

Emblematic of the myriad problems now plaguing this community is the strange tale of a .45-caliber Remington handgun. Today, the gun is securely in the hands of the Illinois State Police. But its connection to an assault on a police officer and the shooting of a child speaks volumes about the abuse of power taking place in this city.

Once, the gun was evidence.

Harvey police confiscated the weapon from Anthony Reynolds, who's accused of pointing the gun at a cop.

Then it disappeared from a detective's desk.

Its loss as evidence last July jeopardized Reynolds' prosecution and prompted Cook County prosecutors to question police practices in Harvey.

The Daily Southtown already had revealed understaffing among rank-and-file officers, questionable spending practices, abusive behavior and thievery in the city lockup and lawless conduct among the mayor's hand-picked police commanders. After these reports, U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. called for outside authorities to intervene, saying a "dire public safety debacle" was under way.

"The idea that a gun which is material evidence ... can go missing from a detective's desk is unbelievable," Jackson said.

In October 2005, bullets from this gun tore into 10-year-old Alex Covington as he crouched on the floor of a small, yellow bungalow in Harvey with his sitter, baby brother and father. The slugs ripped into the flesh of the boy's thigh and bit into his skinny rib cage.

"When the first bullet came in through the window, I had the baby in my arms, I shouted, 'Get down, get down,' " said the sitter, Lachaunda Scott. "The house got shot up, pap, pap, pap."

In the panic, Alex didn't realize he'd been shot.

Then the blood came.

And the tears.

And the anguish of an innocent too young to know the law means nothing to the people in charge here.

"Daddy, I'm hit," he sobbed.

Police quickly concluded Reynolds pulled the trigger.

If you believe word on the street, Reynolds was seeking vengeance. Weeks earlier, he'd been shot. He thought the shooter was in the house where the baby sitter was looking after the Covington boy and his baby brother.

The cops went looking for Reynolds. They found him. He pointed his gun at them. A scuffle ensued, the gun dropped to the concrete, Reynolds was arrested and his gun taken into evidence.

Had detectives tested the weapon, they could have linked it to the Covington shooting. They might have solved that crime. But like so many other crimes in Harvey, detectives couldn't close the case. Instead, sources tell the Southtown, the gun was given to the thug's stepfather on orders from Kellogg. The gun was sold back onto the streets.

Meanwhile, a grand jury was convened. A detective accused of stealing the gun from evidence was indicted. And the mayor was identified as Public Official A - the man who gave the order.

About five months after the gun went missing, the .45 resurfaced through a confluence of circumstance - and the pressure of outside police agencies.

Metra police officer Thomas Cook was shot to death in September while staked out in a crime-plagued train-stop parking lot where many commuters say they've been harassed and robbed. To hear some in Cook's family tell it, Cook was there, in the dark of night, because Harvey's force couldn't put a stop to these crimes. The 43-year-old father of two who dedicated his life to being a good cop died that night because Harvey doesn't have enough good cops.

The South Suburban Major Crimes Task Force - a group of investigators that has excluded Harvey police because of the questionable practices and conduct of top police commanders - took on the challenge of finding a cop killer. Pressure to find the shooter and the murder weapon led someone to turn in a gun to the Robbins Police Department - the missing gun once wielded so menacingly by one Anthony Reynolds, as it turned out.

Six months have passed since Jackson asked for police duties to be taken over by an outside force.

The city council voted in favor of doing so. The mayor ignored them. No one has stepped in. Residents have told the Southtown they must solve their own crimes, as Marice Wall did when her son, a young college student, was attacked in a city park and robbed of his laptop computer. She found the perpetrators herself when Harvey police turned a deaf ear to her pleas.

In those six months, a Metra cop has been murdered.

A Harvey detective has been indicted.

The mayor has become a suspect known as Public Official A.

The city has been sued by the Southtown for access to public records about municipal finances and the dozens of federal lawsuit settlements regarding the conduct of its police force. It appears Harvey could be broke, and many financial documents the city is required to keep are missing.

And Kellogg, who has stacked the upper echelons of his police force with cronies and relatives who hold little regard for the law and have even less ability as police officers, became a sworn police officer in his own city.

With a retinue of bodyguards even a U.S. senator might envy, this disgrace to the rule of law and good government now carries a gun and a badge.

On Monday, Barack Obama comes here. The senator will speak at St. Mark Missionary Baptist Church. Public Official A may even be at his side.

Mr. Obama, thousands will hear what you say that day. They will listen with rapt attention. Maybe you'll tell us you're running for president.

But will you have the audacity to bring hope to Harvey ?

Will you slake their thirst for justice?

You brought a helping hand to the poor of Kenya. You brought a helping hand to the poor of Sudan. You've been an advocate for the best of American democracy.

A disgrace lurks in your own back yard, where democracy has been hijacked.

A sorry plight has descended on this city.

Deception.

Crime.

And misery.

The poor people of Harvey need help.

What will you do?

Epilogue: After taking office, President Obama's Justice Department would quietly begin a wide-ranging investigation of the mayor and the city, which years later would result in criminal charges.