From: nyt%nyxfer%igc.apc.org@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu (NY Transfer News)
Subject: NEWS:Chicago's War on Public Housing Residents/ww
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: The NY Transfer News Service
Resent-From: "Rich Winkel" <MATHRICH@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu>
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 21:38:24 GMT


Via The NY Transfer News Service * All the News that Doesn't Fit

CHICAGO'S WAR ON PUBLIC HOUSING RESIDENTS

By L. Paulsen Chicago

The tragic death of a 7-year-old boy in Chicago's Cabrini-Green
housing project has been used as a pretext for a police offensive
against the residents of the Chicago Housing Authority's
buildings.

Daily police sweeps have harassed the residents of Cabrini-Green.
On only hours' notice, residents of two high-rise buildings were
evicted and forcibly moved to other apartments in the project.

The high-rises are being sealed up and slated for demolition.
Metal detectors are being installed at the remaining buildings'
entrances, where armed police will be permanently stationed.
Residents must show identification to enter; visits by
non-residents have been strictly limited or eliminated.

A media blitz preceded this operation. It started after
7-year-old Dantrell Davis was killed by rifle fire while crossing
the street to school. The Chicago Sun-Times, which has close ties
to the Daley administration, published an unusual front-page
editorial.

CABRINI-GREEN RESIDENTS HAVE NO VOICE

This paper wrote that something "must be done" to save the
children of the housing projects from the effects of poverty,
racism and gang violence. Other public figures joined the chorus,
many even calling for the National Guard to step in. Little was
heard from the residents of Cabrini-Green, virtually all of whom
are African American, except published reports that "this is what
they want."

When Daley's plan was announced the Sun-Times called it a "peace
plan" and the Chicago Tribune called it a "war plan." Both
approved it. Of course it had no mention of any steps to wipe out
poverty and racism.

The "peacemakers" will all be Chicago police, notorious for their
racism, their "accidental" killing of suspects and their
court-documented use of electric shock boxes to torture
confessions out of African American youth, including children.
The cops killed one more suspect the week they took over
Cabrini-Green.

It was revealed today that the federal government seven weeks ago
threatened to cut out $118 million of Chicago Housing Authority
funds unless the city could prove there was an "adequate" city
police presence in the projects.

ACTIONS CONDEMNED

Long-time Cabrini area activist Marion Stamps of the Tranquility
Marksman Community Organization denounced the city's failure to
get any input from the residents. At a news conference, the
direct action group Refuse and Resist condemned the lockdown.

The Movement for a Peoples Assembly organized a spirited
demonstration under the slogan, "Jobs not Jails!" The group
demanded that Chicago "build a community, not a police state."
The MPA also called for the hiring of Chicago Housing Authority
residents to repair the housing the city plans to destroy.

Leaders of Chicago's major African American "gangs" publicly
announced a truce among their organizations at a news conference
attended by community activists Oct. 26.

Marion Stamps said the peace efforts had been under way for a
year and had intensified since the gang truce in Los Angeles
following the rebellion there.

Al-Jami Mustafa, identified as "street leader" of the Mickey
Cobra Nation, read a statement that said in part: "It is time for
all of us to come together for life, not death or jail, for our
existence in this city as Black people. ... Are we descendants of
Al Capone, or of great Black kings?"

The Daley administration expressed its "skepticism" and said its
sweeps of the CHA projects would continue.

Tragedies like young Davis's death cannot be ended by police
raids or by locking more people up. If that could work it would
have by now, since the U.S. has more people in prison than any
other industrial country.

The only answer is to recognize the right of the people to work
in productive jobs for decent money. And the only road there is
unprecedented, united mass action against the system that is the
real architect of poverty and death.

                          -30-

(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted
if source is cited. For more info contact Workers World, 46 W. 21
St., New York, NY 10010; "workers" on PeaceNet; on Internet:
"workers@mcimail.com".)


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