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Stop The Violence

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I recently attended the 7th annual Cook County Jail Town Hall Meeting at Operation PUSH headquarters, 930 E. 50 St. The purpose of the meeting was to have police, jail guards and ex-offenders meet face to face to discuss the conditions in the jails and the inhuman treatment inmates often have to endure.

The former inmates spoke of beatings and rapes. The place was packed when I arrived. There were people on the walls, both sides and the back, too. I was given a seat on the aisle about the fifth row back. I found it to be a spot where I could see everything. Read more »

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A Report On Management at Ogden Courts

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We were summoned to a meeting on March 19. It was a Home Management Seminar.

When we are relocated it will help us if we have our Certificate of Completion, which we received the same day. The certificate states that we have completed to their satisfaction the Good Neighbor Workshop.

Our attendance was required as a part of us being lease compliant. The speaker was Phillis Davis. She, along with Shirley Hammond and Martha Marshall explained to us how we can be a good neighbors. Phillis asked us, “what would we do if our neighbor was sick and her house were in disarray (dirty)?” Read more »

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Stop The Violence

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In this article, I’ll continue to describe the deplorable conditions we live in at Ogden Courts. There are two buildings in Ogden Courts at 2610 and 2710 W. Ogden Ave. Our buildings are only seven stories high. This means they won’t be torn down in the transformation of the CHA complexes I learned this at the last meeting we had to meet our new manager. They finally fixed the second opening to the lobby. They fixed up many empty apartments but they rented them to new tenants. Read more »

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Stop The Violence

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Sept. 5 started out in the usual way. At about 10:15 a.m., I started out of my apartment to go to get my mail. I saw a police truck pulling into the parking lot. A police truck usually means the cops came to a “load” – more people than they can put in the police cars. By the time I got downstairs, there were two police cars pulling up in the alley behind the playground. The cops were already at the gallery on the first floor and they were putting handcuffs on one of the women standing outside apartment 105.

All of a sudden, a second woman broke loose and started running. The police were right behind her. Some of her friends yelled for her to stop but she kept running. As soon as they passed Fairfield Street, six or seven cars sped down Fairfield. I believe this was to cut her off on California, the next street – only one half a block away. Read more »

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Stop The Violence

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On Sept. 11, all hell broke loose. I saw the hijacked planes crash into the World Trade Center and saw the buildings crumble on television as it happened along with millions of other viewers. I stared at my set for a long, long time before I understood that this was for real. Thousands had lost their lives in the two World Trade Centers alone.

I watched the same pictures over and over feeling the horror of what this could mean to us all. These attacks will force people to make many adjustments in the way we live and the way we think.
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Maintenance Defects at Ogden Courts

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I am working with RJ Assistant Editor Beauty Turner on a study of the relocation of the people in public housing high rises.

My residence is Ogden Courts. The Local Advisory Council election is over and the new officers are installed. I hadn’t heard anything about our relocation and I found out that neither had any of the other tenants. So I went to ask the LAC officer in my building, Marie Jones.

Jones told me she was being blackballed and no one was telling her anything. She told me to go to the LAC president in the next building, La’Tresha Green. I went to ask when would we be having a meeting to let us know when we would have to start our relocation. Read more »

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Stop The Violence

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Courtroom Drama

In the last issue, I wrote about the three youths who were incarcerated for the Lori Roscetti murder. Omar Saunders, Calvin Ollins and his cousin, Larry Ollins, spent 15 years in prison for a murder they didn’t commit. A lawyer, Kathleen Zellner, had their cases reviewed and had DNA tests taken that proved that they were not the ones. They were released Dec. 6, 2001.

The irony of the case was that there was a fourth suspect, Marcellius Bradford. He had testified against the other three and got a shorter sentence.

The case was reinvestigated and Eddie Harris, 36, and Duane Roach, 46, were arrested. They had matching DNA. They both confessed and had their first day of trial on Feb. 8. They were indicted for murder with no bond. At a press conference, Omar Saunders said that he was glad the 1 percent of doubt was cleared up. Read more »

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Stop the Violence

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Remembering Eric

During the earlier part of June, I was covering a court case related to the 1994 death of Eric Morse. The little boy’s mother, Toni Morse, filed suit through her attorney, Christopher Millet, on the CHA and two private companies for the death of her son on Oct. 13, 1994.

In the lawsuit, the Morse family attorneys charged the CHA and the companies responsible for Eric’s death because they failed to secure the vacant 14th floor apartment from where Eric was dropped by two other boys. Morse was seeking an unspecified amount of money.
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Stop The Violence

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The month started with me covering the case of Jonathan Tolliver. The jurors had come to a deadlock on the first trial and I covered the retrial.

Tolliver was on trial for the death of Police Officer Michael Ceriale. Ceriale and his partner, Joseph Ferenzi, were staking out a Robert Taylor Homes building on an undercover drug sting Aug. 15, 1998 when Ceriale was shot and killed.

First there was a new set of jurors to be picked. This took two days. Two jurors asked to be excused, one because he said he had a history of mental problems. Read more »

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Stop The Violence

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I covered the recent trial of the man accused of raping Girl X in room 400 of the federal court building downtown.

Girl X, now 14, was assaulted, raped and given some type of poison in a Cabrini-Green hallway in 1997. This incident left the girl mentally damaged and blind. She was marked with gang signs on her stomach.

Most of the time, the courtroom only had reporters present in the audience as the trial went on. The girl herself was in the courtroom. During the cross-examination, the girl was urged to answer questions by the attorneys. Though she was able to give them the information, I had a doubt in my mind whether or not the girl actually knew what was going on. Read more »

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