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46–769 CC 1998

DRUGS AND GANGS IN McHENRY COUNTY

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, 

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT 

REFORM AND OVERSIGHT 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JULY 7, 1997

Serial No. 105–86

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight

(

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM AND OVERSIGHT 

DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman 

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York 

J. DENNIS HASTERT, Illinois 

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland 

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut 

STEVEN SCHIFF, New Mexico 

CHRISTOPHER COX, California 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York 

STEPHEN HORN, California 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia 

DAVID M. MCINTOSH, Indiana 

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana 

JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida 

JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

MARSHALL ‘‘MARK’’ SANFORD, South 

Carolina 

JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire 

PETE SESSIONS, Texas 

MICHAEL PAPPAS, New Jersey 

VINCE SNOWBARGER, Kansas 

BOB BARR, Georgia 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California 

TOM LANTOS, California 

ROBERT E. WISE, JR., West Virginia 

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York 

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York 

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania 

GARY A. CONDIT, California 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

THOMAS M. BARRETT, Wisconsin 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington, 

DC 

CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio 

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois 

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois 

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts 

JIM TURNER, Texas 

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine 

HAROLD E. FORD, JR., Tennessee 

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont 

(Independent) 

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director 

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director 

WILLIAM MOSCHELLA, Deputy Counsel and Parliamentarian 

JUDITH MCCOY, Chief Clerk 

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, AND CRIMINAL

JUSTICE

J. DENNIS HASTERT, Chairman 

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana 

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut 

STEVEN SCHIFF, New Mexico 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

BOB BARR, Georgia 

THOMAS M. BARRETT, Wisconsin 

TOM LANTOS, California 

ROBERT E. WISE, JR., West Virginia 

GARY A. CONDIT, California 

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

JIM TURNER, Texas 

EX OFFICIO

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California 

ROBERT CHARLES, Staff Director/Chief Counsel 

SEAN LITTLEFIELD, Professional Staff Member 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on July 7, 1997 ................................................................................. 1

Statement of: 

Cole, Jerome; Derrick Smith; Pam Maakestad; Jerry Skogmo, program 

director, Renz Addiction Counseling Center; Carlos Chavez, Renz Addiction Counseling Center; and Les Lunsmann, Communities Against 

Gangs ............................................................................................................. 4

LeFew, Bill, Communities Against Drugs; Michael Zawadzki, DEA Agent 

from Chicago; Sheriff Nygren, McHenry County; Gary Pack, State’s 

attorney, McHenry County; William Morley, Assistant Special Agent 

in Charge of the Chicago Field Office, Drug Enforcement Administration ................................................................................................................. 34

Manzulo, Hon. Don, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Illinois ............................................................................................................ 3

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by: 

Cole, Jerome, prepared statement of .............................................................. 6

Hastert, Hon. J. Dennis, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Illinois, letter dated July 3, 1997 ............................................................ 00

Maakestad, Pam, prepared statement of ........................................................ 11

Skogmo, Jerry, program director, Renz Addiction Counseling Center, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 14

Smith, Derrick, prepared statement of ........................................................... 9

(1)

DRUGS AND GANGS IN McHENRY COUNTY 

MONDAY, JULY 7, 1997 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, INTERNATIONAL

AFFAIRS, AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE, 

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM AND OVERSIGHT, 

Algonquin, IL. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:30 p.m., in the 

Algonquin Village Hall, 2200 Harnish Drive, Algonquin, IL, Hon. 

J. Dennis Hastert, presiding. 

Present: Representative Hastert 

Also present: Representative Manzullo. 

Staff present: Robert B. Charles, staff director/chief counsel; and 

Sean Littlefield, professional staff member. 

Mr. HASTERT. This opens our field hearing entitled Drugs and 

Gangs in McHenry County. And I want to first of all welcome everybody that’s here today and especially thank the Village Counsel 

and President Ted Spella, who generously made the facilities here, 

very nice facilities, for us to use. So thank you very much. 

The Subcommittee on National Security, International Affairs, 

and Criminal Justice will now come to order. Today we’re going to 

be examining the dire threat of drugs to our kids in suburban and 

rural communities. When residents of these areas think of drugs 

and teens, often the first thing that comes to mind is kids in impoverished urban areas being victimized by crack dealers and 

gangs. The suburbs and small cities and McHenry and Kane Counties are generally not thought of as places where drug abuse is a 

problem for teens. Unfortunately, times have changed and this 

image is simply no longer true. It’s a sad fact but a harbinger of 

our times that no young person in any community in America is 

out of the reach of cocaine, heroin, LSD, or methamphetamines. 

Nor is any community immune from the drug violence, street gangs 

or trafficking which accompany the arrival of these poisons in our 

midst. 

Citizens in far northern and western suburban Chicago have 

been shocked in recent years as we continually see the encroachment of drugs, drug-related violence and street gangs. No longer 

are we insulated from the problems that we used to think were 

confined to big cities such as Chicago and Detroit, and one need 

only read the recent news stories about the seizure of $1 million 

worth of high grade marijuana in the biggest drug bust in 

McHenry County history which occurred only a few days ago to understand the nature of the problem. 

2

Thanks to the good work of McHenry Country Sheriff Keith 

Nygren, who is here with us today, and undercover agents of the 

DEA, these drugs were prevented from invading McHenry County. 

In neighboring DeKalb County, a predominantly rural area in my 

congressional district, the DeKalb Chronicle recently ran a series 

of articles on drug use among our teens in high school. As a parent 

and a former teacher and a former coach of 16 years, I feel this 

problem is devastating and will require an effort by all of us to reverse. 

A few examples are illustrative. The results of the ISA study on 

drug use in DeKalb high schools published this year is a case in 

point. They’re highly disturbing. Forty percent of high school students polled have used marijuana. That’s nearly half of all the kids 

in school; 14 percent said they’ve used LSD, 6 percent report using 

inhalants, 5 percent have tried cocaine, and that’s 1 in every 20 

kids. The saddest part is that these aren’t just statistics. They’re 

not just numbers. These are our kids right here at home. And one 

more point. These kids aren’t someone else’s kids in someone else’s 

cities. They’re our kids in our communities. If they’re already in 

trouble with drugs now while they’re in high school, what’s to make 

us think that they will lick the habit later in their lives. 

Numerous studies have shown that the earlier a young person 

gets hooked on drugs, the more negative and longer the impact of 

drugs will be on them throughout their lives. The story is now the 

same wherever you go, whether it’s DeKalb County or McHenry 

County, DuPage County or the city of Chicago. It’s not a mystery 

why drugs and drug-driven crime and gangs have invaded our communities, urban, suburban and rural. 

A year ago, on behalf of the U.S. House leadership, I began to 

try to pull together Republicans and Democrats alike that are committed to finding real lasting solutions to our Nation’s drug problems and during the time that I’ve been involved in this effort, I’ve 

found that traveling throughout Illinois and certainly throughout 

the United States and, in some cases, around this globe, there are 

people who are trying to solve the problems. But basically those 

folks can’t do it by themselves and there’s no one approach that’s 

the mend all/cure all solution. 

I’ve also constantly looked for solutions to the places where these 

dangerous drugs are produced including the remote and dangerous 

places in South America and Asia. I’ve learned a lot about the nature of the drug problem in America and abroad, but one item 

stands out. Every aspect of drug war is inter-connected. One aspect 

hooks on to another like a chain link fence and while we’ve attacked every link, the success or failure of our policies in any specific area drastically affects the success or failure of our policies in 

all areas. 

Fortunately, despite alarming trends in youth drug use, especially in suburban and rural areas, not all the news is bad. We’re 

here today to listen to folks about their experiences, how they got 

involved in drugs, if that’s the case, or what their solution is. We 

value you who are testifying before us today. We value all like you 

who are out there fighting the war on drugs in our communities 

and our neighborhoods. 

3

Mr. HASTERT. And I’m going to yield to my colleagues, whose district we’re in this afternoon. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Thank you, Congressman. 

Mr. HASTERT. Don Manzullo. 

STATEMENT OF HON. DON MANZULO, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS 

Mr. MANZULLO. It’s a pleasure to be here this afternoon. I have 

been involved in the study, as it were, of how people get involved 

with drugs ever since 1970 when I started practicing law in Noble 

County. I represented several hundred people who have encountered problems with the law because of their becoming addicted to 

drugs. This is a very, very serious problem. The nature of it has 

changed throughout the past 20—25 years. 

What we do know now, is that drugs are more readily available, 

they’re more potent, they’re cheaper, and the drugs to which today’s parents were introduced 15 and 20 years ago when they were 

in high school is nothing compared to the quality and the competency of the drugs that are on the market today and readily 

available to their kids. So this is a generational problem where one 

of our goals at this meeting is try to inculcate into parents who 

have kids in school today that the drugs of today are not the drugs 

that were in school when they were in school. It’s a much more serious and much more difficult problem. 

Because of the problem of drugs, the gangs have emerged. 

McHenry County, because it’s the fastest growing county in the 

State of Illinois, has also become a haven for drug dealers and for 

gang organizers to come out of nearby Cook County to try to come 

into our peaceful rural county and to try to peddle their wares, corrupt our kids, and destroy our culture and quality of life in this 

county. 

Because of the menace of drugs, I joined with Congressman 

Hastert about 2 years ago, the coalition that Denny set up in the 

House of Representatives. We meet approximately once a month 

with some of the most high profile people in the government who 

are tackling the battle against drugs on several levels. 

In addition, I assembled the 60th Congressional District AntiDrug Coalition last year to spur regional ideas for fighting drug 

and gang activity across northern Illinois. The congressional district that I represent runs from McHenry/Lake County line all the 

way to the Mississippi River. So we have over 600,000 people, over 

50 high schools, lots of small towns that are facing some very scary 

facts with regard to drugs and gangs. The goal of coalition is to 

fight drug abuse among all ages and all communities in our district. 

So we look forward to hearing the testimony of those who have 

been intimately involved in the struggle against drugs and, Chairman Hastert, I appreciate your leadership in this area. 

Mr. HASTERT. Well, thank you for joining me today, and at this 

time I’d like to introduce our first panel. The first three witnesses 

will provide a human face on the war on drugs; one is a victim and 

two have been involved with gangs. All will provide insight into the 

scourge of drugs in rural communities. These three witnesses are 

Jerome, Derrick, and Pam Maakestad. Jerry Skogmo is program diVerDate jul 14 2003 10:30 Dec 03, 2003 Jkt 090584 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 W:\DISC\46769 46769
4

rector for the Renz Addiction Counseling Center and Carlos Chavez 

works with youth prevention programs with the Renz Addiction 

Counseling Center. Les Lunsmann has been a leader in heading up 

the organization Communities Against Gangs. I thank you all for 

being here today. In accordance with our House rules, we will 

swear you in and please stand and raise your right hands. 

[Witnesses sworn.] 

Mr. HASTERT. Let the record show that the witnesses answered 

in the affirmative. Jerome, would you please start? 

STATEMENTS OF JEROME COLE; DERRICK SMITH; PAM 

MAAKESTAD; JERRY SKOGMO, PROGRAM DIRECTOR, RENZ 

ADDICTION COUNSELING CENTER; CARLOS CHAVEZ, RENZ 

ADDICTION COUNSELING CENTER; AND LES LUNSMANN, 

COMMUNITIES AGAINST GANGS 

Mr. COLE. Hi, my name is Jerome Cole. I know a lot about drugs 

because I used drugs, I sold drugs, and also organized groups of 

people to sell drugs for me. Until recently, I lived in an area that 

had the highest drug use in DeKalb. The building I lived in was 

referred to by the drug task force as a haven for drug dealers. Over 

a 4-year period, I met many drug dealers and drug users in the 

DeKalb area. I saw or took part in a lot of drug deals in the 

DeKalb area. From what I saw and what the other dealers told me, 

we supplied together approximately thousands of people with marijuana, cocaine and other drugs. 

I know a lot of young kids in DeKalb that’s using drugs now. 

They have different names for the drugs now. They call it weed, 

bud, or the most popular name now is chronic. Four years ago, a 

couple of high school students came to me to purchase some drugs 

and I had them sell drugs for me. Also they was telling me that 

they was selling drugs to their parents and their parents were 

smoking marijuana with them. 

Cocaine use has leveled off in the DeKalb area as far as I can 

tell. Acid use is increasing among the skateboarders and the 

‘‘hippie types.’’ Recently in DeKalb people have been sprinkling 

crack cocaine on the blunt. A blunt is a cigar that’s been hollowed 

out. The tobacco has been hollowed out. It’s been replaced by marijuana and when they go on it to get an extra high, they put heroin 

or crack cocaine, they sprinkle it on to boost the high. 

Heroin is also being used in DeKalb. I know a couple of people 

in DeKalb who use heroin. They either snort it or the hard core 

users, they pop it or shoot it intravenously. But heroin is not sold 

in DeKalb as far as I know. DeKalb users have to drive to Chicago 

to get their heroin. When the heroin high is over, the users are 

usually in a lot of physical pain. Back pains, neck pains, leg pains 

and different things like that. 

Looking at the drug business from the outside, now that I’m on 

the outside, it seems there are only three ways to go. Stay away 

from the drug scene altogether, go to a penal institution or you end 

up dead. I see three types of drug users in my time with the inner 

drug game: The recreational or social user which includes respected 

members of the community, the person who goes on periodic binges 

if they come into some extra money or they’re really upset or having problems, they may tend to use drugs, or the person on the 

5

street that’s called a ‘‘hype.’’ That’s the person that’s got a constant 

habit and will do anything to get the drugs. I’ve seen many people 

go from smoking pot occasionally to constant use of more serious 

drugs like cocaine and heroin. 

Some police have been more effective in reducing the drug problem when they talk respectfully and get to know the drug dealers 

and users and the younger people in the community. Local church 

programs, job programs and youth activity programs are also very 

helpful to reduce drug use. 

Right now I’m a local business manager and I have hired at least 

25 people to help them stay away from drugs. I’ve also helped organize youth activities locally. I have come into contact with approximately 200 to 300 people in these positive activities and I think 

church programs, jobs and sports activities keep most kids away 

from drugs. 

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you, Jerome. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Cole follows:]

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Mr. HASTERT. Derrick. 

Mr. SMITH. I’m Derrick Smith. I’m an academic counselor at 

Northern Illinois University at the Center for Black Studies and 

currently a doctoral student in adult education with emphasis on 

community development. 

This is my testimony. Thirty years ago, I was involved with drug 

dealers and drug users in Chicago. I saw the cycles of casual marijuana use turn to cocaine and heroin addiction. I also saw a lot of 

people say no to pot, even though others around them were using 

drugs. Today I work with more than 100 young people in the 

DeKalb area. Most of them are near the danger zone of drug use. 

Some of their parents are addicted to cocaine or abuse alcohol. 

From my contact with these young people in DeKalb, I learned 

about the drug use that’s happening in this community. I have 

seen drug dealers as young as 14 and 15 years old in DeKalb. I 

have talked to five local high school age athletes who told me about 

their use of weed, which is marijuana, mushrooms, which is a hallucinogenic drug, and alcohol. I talked to some of the drug dealers 

in DeKalb. Some of the kids tell me that pot is OK to use. They 

don’t understand that they’re opening Pandora’s box when they’re 

using pot. They don’t see the problems that can occur. 

In the DeKalb area, pot is often sold by dealers with street gang 

connections. Stepping into the world of pot brings the young person 

closer to cocaine, acid, gangs, crime, drug addiction, and jail. I have 

seen this cycle happen itself with some people in DeKalb. I have 

also seen young people in DeKalb move away from drugs when caring adults have spent time with them and told them drugs are not 

tolerated here. In DeKalb, there are church programs, sports programs, and job opportunities that have helped kids stay away from 

drugs. Some police have helped reduce drug use in DeKalb by getting to know the young people who may use illegal drugs. 

I have a lot of experience and information related to drugs and 

in keeping kids away from drugs. I am available to answer questions you may have. 

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you, Derrick. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith follows:]

9


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Mr. HASTERT. Ms. Maakestad. 

Ms. MAAKESTAD. My name is Pam Maakestad. My son Brent 

Cooper was murdered at age 17 and this is my story. My son Brent 

started using drugs when he was around the age of 12. He started 

off with casual use of pot. He then used it more frequently. He 

started using other drugs such as acid and by the age of 14, my 

son went to a 90 day in-patient rehabilitation program. Three to 

four times a week I drove to the drug rehab center in Wisconsin. 

I went to group counseling sessions with my son Brent and others 

who had become addicted to alcohol and marijuana at such an 

early age. 

Brent did well in the drug rehab program and we learned a lot. 

We learned that each day would be a struggle to stay away from 

the alcohol and other drugs. My son stayed sober for about a year 

and then he started to use drugs again. When he was 15 years old, 

he started to use acid and other more dangerous drugs. Along with 

his drug use, he got in trouble with the law and also started to 

hang around with gang members because they sold the drugs. He 

hung around with the dealers and the gangs so often that he joined 

the gang. Many people don’t realize the connection between casual 

pot use and street gangs. Even in DeKalb County there’s a connection between pot and gangs. 

By 16, Brent was back in drug rehab program. Once again, he 

was a model student. He graduated from the in-patient program 

and decided to attend an out-patient counseling. 

At age 17 he was getting his life back together. He was trying 

to stay away from the drug people, but it wasn’t easy. On August 

17, 1991, Brent was shot and murdered near the courthouse in Sycamore. He was murdered by a group of people who were involved 

with drugs and gangs at the time he was murdered. Even though 

my son was not using drugs at the time he was murdered, it was 

his past drug use that brought him to the place where he was. If 

it weren’t for drugs and gangs, my son would be alive today. 

On August 17th it will be 6 years that have passed since Brent 

was murdered. I think of him every day, especially when I look at 

his son who looks so much like him. I especially remember one 

night a few weeks before he was murdered. Brent was having a 

bad reaction to a drug known as Wickie stick. He was shaking and 

trembling uncontrollably. I remember holding him in my arms and 

rocking back and forth until the effects wore off, and he accepted 

that everyone in the family was safe and all right. 

Even today I hear about local kids as young as 12 years old who 

use acid and pot. A lot of kids in DeKalb also use alcohol which 

can be more destructive than the illegal drugs. 

I came here today to share my story in order to help other families avoid the grief that drugs have brought to my family. Drug and 

alcohol education programs find it hard to compete with the example set at home. Many people are afraid to tell adults to look at 

their own drug and alcohol use. The parents need the drug and alcohol abuse education, too. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Maakestad follows:]

11


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Mr. HASTERT. Thank you, Pam. I’m sorry I mispronounced your 

name before. With a name like Hastert, you really can’t afford to 

do that very much. 

Mr. Skogmo. 

Mr. SKOGMO. Good afternoon. My name is Jerry Skogmo. I’m the 

executive director of Renz Addiction Counseling Center. With me is 

Carlos Chavez, who is a key prevention specialist in our prevention 

program. Carlos provides outreach preventative activities to primarily the Hispanic population in our catchment area. 

Renz Center is a community-based nonprofit agency that has 

been in operation since 1961. We now have offices in Elgin, which 

is our main office, Carpentersville, Hanover Park, and St. Charles. 

We provide prevention and treatment of alcohol and substance 

abuse in these and neighboring communities. 

I’ll let Carlos comment on the prevention program. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Skogmo follows:]

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Mr. CHAVEZ. Good afternoon. 

Mr. HASTERT. Good afternoon. 

Mr. CHAVEZ. I would like to apologize for my broken English. 

Mr. HASTERT. Don’t apologize. 

Mr. CHAVEZ. Thank you. The Renz Center Prevention Program 

is a comprehensive program that utilizes the five prevention strategies: providing culturally sensitive, age appropriate information, 

educating youth and adults, training impactors, providing alternative activities, and community mobilization. We work collaboratively with a variety of agencies, the schools, and individuals to 

empower people and communities to remain healthy and drug free. 

Our prevention staff has spent time implementing needs assessments, researching areas/populations, and narrowing down risk 

factors to create programs based on an outcome measurement 

model. Working with this model allows the opportunity to measure 

the impact of the work that we do. The three populations that we 

are focusing on include youth in northern Kane County, the School 

District 300, and Glendale Terrace Apartments. 

Prevention programming for the Latino population has also become a primary focus for our department. We have two bilingual/

bicultural prevention specialists who are involved in a variety of 

programs. Because the concept of alcohol and other drug prevention is new to the Latino population, our prevention specialists 

have spent time gaining the trust of the community. Our programming for the Latino population includes presentations to youths 

and adults, a Latin American Theater Festival, a summer soccer 

league for youth, and a Spanish language radio show in conjunction 

with U–46 school district. 

Other activities that our prevention staff are involved in include 

providing technical assistance to schools and community groups, 

planning and implementing Operation Snowflake/flurry events, 

training high school youth to present health information to their 

peers and younger students and serving on a variety of community 

coalitions, boards, and committees in our area. 

Mr. SKOGMO. On the treatment side, our outpatient programs 

target both youth and adults. We promote education and abstinence and provide counseling to addicts and their families. We 

have also a special program designed for women substance abusers 

and women who are in relationship with an addict. We also provide 

a treatment program for compulsive gamblers through funds from 

the city of Elgin. 

We are seeing disturbing trends in drug abuse with adolescents. 

Marijuana and inhalant usage is increasing according to our staff, 

and there have been but steady increases in heroin usage in all of 

our catchment area, I might add, primarily with late teens and 

early 20’s population. In addition, alcohol continues to be the most 

widely abused drug and is often accompanied by poly drug abuse. 

We have some funding concerns. There appears to be an apparent lack of concern for funding for early intervention programs 

from the State. This type of program is also important for those, 

especially adolescents who have begun to experiment with drugs. 

Also, the State’s General Assembly chose not to act on a Cost of 

Doing Business increase for fiscal year 1998. We need to continue 

to sustain and upgrade our programs and our professional staff. 

17

Thank you for the opportunity to present this testimony to you. 

We welcome questions. 

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Lunsmann. 

Mr. LUNSMANN. Thank you. I retired recently from law enforcement April 1st and for the 81⁄2 years previous to that, I worked undercover narcotics and street gangs generally in the McHenry 

County area but I have worked in DeKalb County and Kane County so I’m pretty familiar with the areas out there. 

What I found alarming was in the 81⁄2 years I was there the age 

level of the person we were arresting and sending away to prison 

or into rehab went down. I think one of the youngest people I arrested with drugs was 11 years old. I could tell you unequivocally 

that there’s not a school in McHenry County grade 7 and up that 

doesn’t have some kind of drug in it, drug activity, gang activity. 

My belief is that the individuals that are working this, I commend the county on the marijuana arrest they had last week. It 

was a great job but there needs to be a different set of standards 

set for younger people. We have to come up with some kind of program to show the younger people what they’re doing wrong and not 

get them involved. If we eliminate the demand, the supply is going 

to go away. We’re not going to eliminate this demand by arresting 

40 year old drug dealers every day and still have the 13 year old 

youth out there that want their marijuana that they can pick in 

the rural fields of McHenry and Kane County. We need to get people inside the schools. If it’s law enforcement, working with the 

school districts, the communities, work together, fight this thing. If 

we have to put some kids in jail to make them realize it’s the 

wrong path they’re taking. We’ve got to stop the users from becoming users before they are users. The D.A.R.E. programs aren’t 

doing it. Operation Snowball is not doing it. It’s only touching a 

minor amount of the children out there. 

Nationally, I think the statistic is 31⁄2 to 4 percent of the children 

are getting involved in drugs and gangs. McHenry County is fortunate. It’s 11⁄2 percent, but that’s going to rise. It’s risen every year 

since we started monitoring ganges and drugs in McHenry Country. 

The programs we have in McHenry are great. I think for the size 

of McHenry County and the influx of people coming in, the people 

that are handling the drug activity and the gang activity and the 

counselling are doing a good job, but it’s not enough. We have to 

get into youth’s heads and get them off the drugs and out of the 

gangs before they start getting into them. The programs we have 

in place, the task force, the meg units, the county drug agents, the 

local drug agents and gang agents are doing their job, but I think 

getting more into the school system—I’m not talking about education. I’m talking about with counseling for the kids that get arrested and put into probation for drug abuse and gang activity. The 

younger we get to them, the better off we’re going to be in 10 years 

from now. You’ll never know the effect. We don’t know the effect 

that D.A.R.E. has had on kids, how many kids they’ve kept off of 

drugs. There’s no statistic to measure that. But you have to do 

something. You can’t just keep arresting, cutting the head off the 

18

snake because there’s a lot of snakes out there. You’ve got to get 

the kids that are buying the dope and go join the gangs. 

Thanks for asking me here to testify. 

Mr. HASTERT. Well, thank you very much. We’re going to go 

around with questions and may go two rounds of questions, and 

I’m going to defer to my colleague from the 17th Congressional District, Don Manzullo, to start questions. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Thank you, Denny. 

One of the problems, one of the many problems associated with 

our subject today is a telltale sign that a child is on drugs or getting close to drug activity. Pam, you suffered the ultimate loss, a 

child, and you have another child who got involved in drugs. Two 

of your three children. As a mom and somebody who I know cares 

personally about their kids, what advice do you have for parents 

who may think that their kids are OK but wake up in the morning 

and discover that your kid has gotten involved in drugs? 

Ms. MAAKESTAD. I believe what needs to be done is that the parents need to be given more education or as much education as the 

kids are getting. If I’d known half the things that I know now, I 

may have been able to stop Brent’s murder and may have kept him 

from getting into the gangs and kept him from getting into drugs. 

I don’t know that, but it’s a possibility with the signs. After he 

died, I saw signs and symbols and everything. 

Mr. MANZULLO. What were those signs after he passed away, 

Pam? 

Ms. MAAKESTAD. There were signs like gang signs with his hats, 

with his clothing. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Explain it yourself. Tell us. 

Ms. MAAKESTAD. His clothing was basically blue and black. He’s 

always been a fan—I mean ever since he was a little kid, he always 

liked the color blue. So when he asked for—at Christmas time he 

asked if anybody got him clothes, get him blue and black. We never 

thought anything about it. My grandparents, everyone, gave him 

blue sweaters or blue and black scarves or whatever. The baseball 

hats. He wanted the As, Oakland As. Some of the stars, some of 

the drawings. He was very good in drawing. He was all set up to 

go to school in January to be an architect and so he was very good 

at drawing and a lot of his drawings had gang symbols in them 

and I saw the drawings but I didn’t realize that they were gang 

symbols. I had no idea because we had never—in Sycamore we had 

never heard about gangs. When Brent was murdered, then it all 

came out and they’re still not admitting that it’s as bad as it is but 

as far as I’m concerned, I think it’s worse than it ever was. 

Mr. MANZULLO. So something as simple as a favorite color. 

Ms. MAAKESTAD. Favorite colors, drawings on their school books 

or papers, their hats. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Hats. 

Ms. MAAKESTAD. Just wearing them to one side or the other. The 

symbolism on their hats. Tennis shoes tied, one side tied, the other 

side not. One cuff of the pant leg up, one down. Same way with 

bib overalls. One side up and one down. All this, I didn’t know any 

of this until after he was dead. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Let me ask the same question of the counselors. 

Mr. Chavez, I’m sure you relate to what Pam just said and Les, if 

19

you want add in at this point because I’m very much concerned 

over the fact that parents will have kids involved in gangs and not 

even know it. These are just growing up type of things. Kids go 

through fads. I used to have a stocking hat. Regardless of how you 

put it on, that’s how you wore it and things of that nature. In any 

order, what other signs or symbols should parents look for if their 

kids are involved in gangs? 

Mr. LUNSMANN. The clothing she mentioned is predominantly the 

thing to look for. If your kids are hanging with other kids and they 

tend to all dress in the same color or the same type of hats and 

stuff, that’s a good sign. But it’s more the way the kids act. I think 

Pam will tell you that your kids act a totally different way when 

they hang around gangs and drugs. Their respect factor and everything goes down toward other human beings. They only have a certain number of people they’ll even talk to. But watch for tatoos in 

discrete places. The drawings are atypical. A brand new gang member, somebody that just joined a gang, they draw all the literature 

and stuff for that street gang. That’s the kind of stuff you look for. 

The mood swings are a big thing. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Tell us about the mood swings. Mr. Chavez. 

Mr. CHAVEZ. They tend to be more aggressive. They don’t listen 

to the parents the way they should. Another big sign is large 

amount of money. They’re carrying always money. It could be 

through dealing drugs at the same time. Another big sign is the 

friends that they have now from the gang. They’re not introduced 

to the parents. Now they don’t invite the new friends to the house 

and hang around there. So that’s a big sign that there’s something 

going on with your kid. 

All the activities that he usually liked like basketball or anything, they’re gone and again, they’re more violent. They’re definitely more violent toward everybody, brothers, sisters, parents. 

They don’t want to attend to family activities, picnics or anything. 

They refuse to. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Does this take place over a gradual period of 

time so that the parent is sort of lulled into not thinking there’s 

a problem? 

Mr. CHAVEZ. Well, I believe that every kid is different and every 

case is different. Sometimes parents, they are not even aware because they’re not there for the kids or they’re busy working overtime or they’re working different shifts so they don’t know exactly 

what’s going on at home. But again, it might be very slowly 

changes and then all of a sudden there is a big rebellion against 

the family. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Derrick and Jerome, you want to tackle that 

question? What should parents look for to indicate to them that 

their kids may be involved in gang or drug activity? What telltale 

signs are there? 

Mr. COLE. The clothing is probably the more prolific thing, the 

different colors. Like she said, for instance, her son had an Oakland As hat. I knew her son. He was a member of the Ambrose so 

that’s what the A stands for. You know, different gangs like for the 

gangster disciple, a lot of them will have the blue hats with the G 

on it for Georgetown. A lot of the sports logos, you know, different 

colored college teams, North Carolina Tarheels with the blue and 

20

the white. Different things like that. You see a group of kids with 

their hats different sides, wearing them to the right side or to the 

left. The clothing is probably the first thing you’ll notice or different scarves. When they start wearing scarves. A red scarf or a 

gold scarf or blue or black scarf. Those are the telltale signs that, 

you know, they’ve been plugged in in the gang. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Derrick. 

Mr. SMITH. Yes. I think they just about answered, you know, the 

question because clothing is the main thing and I think far as parents, it’s more of a gradual thing, you know, because you start off 

and the deeper you get into it, the more aggressive your behavior 

is because that’s a way of life in gangs. You know, you have to be 

more aggressive because you might wind up and get you a rank 

and stuff like that and that’s what, you know, most of the guys 

who get in gangs are trying to do. Try to get leadership roles. 

Mr. HASTERT. Thanks, Don. 

Jerome, I’m going to go back to you. I’ll go back with a second 

round of questions here. But you actually came in, you were in athletics and then got out of athletics. To kind of fill a void in your 

life, you got involved in the gangs and drugs. You were actually a 

recruiter. Right? 

Mr. COLE. Yes, I was. 

Mr. HASTERT. What kind of kid did you go after and what were 

the signs that you saw that you said, I can get this kid in. What 

were the things, what kind of kids did you go after? 

Mr. COLE. First of all, I was already involved in the gangs. I 

played sports throughout high school, so the gang members respected the fact that I was still in school. Out of 15 or 16 guys that 

grew up together, I was the only one still in school playing sports, 

so they respected it. So my activities in the gang wasn’t ‘‘the drivebys or the big fights’’ and things like that because I was in school. 

But the fact that I was in school and playing sports, I had other 

kids that looked up to me, so I just misused that popularity and 

I could have easily—if a kid was from a dysfunctional family, not 

necessarily a single parent family but if I seen that he had problems or that he needed help in any aspect of his life, it was easy 

for me to pick that guy out of the crowd and have him cross on 

over. I mean, you know, you look at a kid that’s looking for somebody to basically be a role model for a kid that’s dropped out of 

school or a kid that got a drug problem at an early age, those are 

the easiest kids. That was the easiest prey. If a kid was from a 

strong family background, mother and father or just mother or father was there and talked to them and had personal counseling 

with them, I could never get that kid. But if you had any type of 

dysfunction in your life and I could take advantage of that, it was 

easy. 

Mr. HASTERT. What did the gang offer to an individual that he 

couldn’t get any place else? 

Mr. COLE. Money, protection, family, sense of involvement. To 

me, growing up in New York, coming to Chicago, it’s just the energy of a youth just misguided. If I was on a baseball team, I know 

I have to go to baseball practice when I come home from school but 

if I’m just coming home from school and I’m hanging out in the 

’hood, you know, and they hanging out in their ’hood and we want 

21

to see which ’hood is the toughest, so we go. You send a couple of 

guys from one place to meet up with some guys from another place 

and you fight it out. That’s how it started out when I grew up in 

New York. But then it’s escalated to OK, my turf need money so 

we’re going to sell drugs and I don’t want you over here on my turf, 

you know. And you came over on my turf, we roll on your turf and 

it just goes back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. 

Mr. HASTERT. So actually, the gangs and the drugs are tied together. The drugs become the financial——

Mr. COLE. Most times they do. Drugs or guns. 

Mr. HASTERT. And so that’s what the gang sold and the turf 

comes into your sales district. Right? In a sense, what it is? 

Mr. COLE. Yes, it is. 

Mr. HASTERT. How much money do you think an organization, a 

gang, a couple of kids or you define it for me, can make in a week 

selling drugs? 

Mr. COLE. Countless. A lot. Nowadays, a lot. 

Mr. HASTERT. Which means what? 

Mr. COLE. I know young drug dealers, ages 20–21, that’s millionaires. Multi-millionaires. 

Mr. HASTERT. That’s a lot of money. 

Mr. COLE. Yes, a whole lot. 

Mr. HASTERT. And drive nice cars and do things——

Mr. COLE [continuing]. Everything, the police paid off, the whole 

nine. 

Mr. HASTERT. So, what happens then is kids see this and——

Mr. COLE. It’s like a sports figure. He’ll be glamorized. He’s the 

new hero. It’s not the policeman, it’s not the fireman, it’s not the 

teacher. Everybody can’t be like Mike, so the local drug dealer is 

the next closest thing to glamour that the kids see. 

Mr. HASTERT. It gets their attention. If somebody is a millionaire 

or a multi-millionaire and you’re still living and you’re 18 or 20 

years old——

Mr. COLE. If you’re walking in the neighborhoods, everybody, I 

mean everybody in the neighborhood, law officials, everything, talk 

to you as if you’re a celebrity. I mean that’s what it’s become now. 

The drug dealers are the new heroes and the new celebrities because of artificial things like cars and gold chains and different 

things like that. I’ve seen that first hand. 

Mr. HASTERT. Derrick, you had kind of a similar entry into this 

thing. You came out of the city of Chicago and were an athlete and 

then were involved with gangs and you did some recruiting, too, 

didn’t you, as a gang recruiter? 

Mr. SMITH. I didn’t do too much recruiting as far as when I came 

out of Chicago. I did a little recruiting while I was in Chicago. Like 

Jerome was saying, being a sports figure, you know you can get a 

following and it’s how you want to direct that following. Like he 

said, those that are weak and those wannabes that want to be part 

of you, want to do the things you’re doing. It was easy, you know, 

to direct them to the wrong place and do the wrong things. 

But when I came to—when I went to NIU, you know, I went by 

way of a junior college and I was playing sports. When I stepped 

on campus, I was basically just trying to find somebody to deal 

drugs for me. I wasn’t trying to recruit because during weekends 

22

I’d have the guys from Chicago come up and we’d make plans 

about what we wanted to do and the things we wanted to do and 

if we wanted to get some money some way. We had another dealer 

at NIU that was dealing and we felt that we could make more 

money if we got him out the way. They would do something to me 

and then we would take over his spot. 

Mr. HASTERT. Derrick, you were recruiting people to sell drugs. 

Mr. SMITH. Right. 

Mr. HASTERT. It wasn’t necessarily really gang-related. 

Mr. SMITH. Basically up there it was just, you know, sell drugs 

for me and make some money, you know, because I wanted them 

to stay in school because if they stayed in school, then I’d have a 

spot at each one of the dorms where I had somebody dealing drugs 

for me. 

Mr. HASTERT. So, it was your network or chain. 

Mr. SMITH. Right. 

Mr. HASTERT. Let me you ask you the same question. Do you 

agree with Jerome that you can make a lot of money doing this? 

Mr. SMITH. Yes, you can but, you know——

Mr. HASTERT. What’s the down side of that? 

Mr. SMITH. The down side is death, imprisonment, you know, 

and that’s what you try to tell the young people when I’m dealing 

with them. You know, I said how many drug dealers did you know 

that were living large when they were young that are drawing pensions now? You know, most of them you find, you can go to the 

cemetery and find or either you go to prison and find them. And 

I said that’s a short route because a lot of them think, you know, 

we need money right now. My mom needs money. I have to take 

care of her. And the thing I try to express to them is what if something happened to you? You know, what if your life is taken? Then 

who’s going to take care of your mom? You know, you just started 

thinking about the overall long picture which would be education 

and try to do something economically, and I think the society as 

a whole right now with the economic system, you know, situation 

like it is now and like the downsizing. You see your parents come 

home and they’re laid off and you see people with college degrees 

and they can’t find a job and so you’re looking at them and saying, 

well, they took the educational route, you know, and now I’m looking at the drug dealer and he’s got four new cars and a pocket full 

of money, you know. It’s either/or. Which way should I go? You 

know, so it’s pretty easy to decide, you know, to take the wrong 

route. 

So, you know, our big thing is just try to give them a balance. 

You know, you try to show them like I tell them like myself. I said 

I’m an individual that went to NIU, sold drugs, drove Corvettes 

around NIU, drove Mercedes around NIU. Got hooked on heroin, 

flunked out of Northern twice and now I’ve got a 3.7 grade point 

average and working on a doctor’s degree. I said so, you know, you 

can make it. It’s all the mind set that you have, you know, and it’s 

another way around it. I’m 47 years old now and the guys that I 

grew up with, you know, they’re not around. 

Mr. HASTERT. They’re gone. 

Mr. SMITH. They’re gone. 

23

Mr. HASTERT. Tell us a little about how you approach these people and what you’re doing now. 

Mr. SMITH. Basically what we’re doing now, as a matter of fact, 

this summer we wrote a proposal to the mayor and we got a day 

camp for economically disadvantaged children and we have a basketball program which we call the Basketball Academy where we 

have rap sessions and we teach them basketball skills and the day 

camp is from 9 to 2 and the basketball is from 5 to 10 and from 

5 to 7 we have the 5th through 8th graders and from 7:30 to 9:30 

we have the high schoolers and, you know, sports is usually a calling card so once you get them in and then you try to develop a relationship because a lot of them that might be involved with gangs, 

they try to test you. You know, they ask you different questions to 

see, you know, because they know where I come from and what I’ve 

done, so they want to see if it’s true so if I can answer all the questions legitimately and they feel like, you know, hey, he was involved, then we develop a relationship because I have young guys 

telling on other guys on the team. You know, Mr. Smith, he’s involved with drugs now. You need to talk to him. You know, they 

tell me about other guys that are involved in gangs and we just 

have a relationship where when I see a person or hear something, 

I call that individual in and from the stance of the community, the 

young guys come in and talk to me and normally they probably 

wouldn’t talk to most people but they feel I understand them and 

I sit down and I try to tell them, you know, all of them you can’t 

save. I think that was the hardest thing for me to realize. You can’t 

save everybody. Everybody is not going to listen. But at least you 

have a chance to talk to them. You give them the opportunity to 

make their own choice. You know, this way they see what’s good. 

Fifty percent, they see the bad 50 percent. But when you’re saying 

like when I grew up in the projects in Chicago, 75 percent was the 

bad which we called the good, drug use, selling drugs, and 25 percent was going to school, getting your books and getting an education. So normally, you know, everybody in the situation I was in, 

once you hit 13, you went to a gang. That was almost automatic. 

So with the 75 percent, you tend to go toward the 75 percent with 

a 50/50 outlook on each side, you know, this is your choice. You 

know, this is a decision you make and you know what’s at the end 

of that tunnel. You know it’s either and jail or you could be a positive asset in the community. 

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Skogmo, you’re in treatment, right? 

Mr. SKOGMO. Right. 

Mr. HASTERT. Tell me very briefly, about your program and do 

you get kids or is it mostly kids or is it adults? 

Mr. SKOGMO. Both. About 50 percent each, adolescents and 

adults. 

Mr. HASTERT. They’re referred to you by the courts or they come 

voluntarily? 

Mr. SKOGMO. Not too often voluntarily. Occasionally families will 

call or physicians, but mostly schools and the court system. 

Mr. HASTERT. Run us through. Say a kid is 16 years old and he’s 

referred to you. What happens? 

Mr. SKOGMO. Well, certainly it depends on the nature of the 

offsense. If it’s a drug offense at school, we would provide an asVerDate jul 14 2003 10:30 Dec 03, 2003 Jkt 090584 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 W:\DISC\46769 46769
24

sessment just to determine the severity of the drug problem and we 

would try to get them into a treatment program if treatment is 

warranted or we have an early intervention program. 

Mr. HASTERT. What’s the difference? 

Mr. SKOGMO. Early intervention is usually for people who are experimenting with drugs. 

Mr. HASTERT. What is the prevention or intervention? 

Mr. SKOGMO. Depending on the type of drug use. It’s a form of 

treatment, but it’s very early stage. 

Mr. HASTERT. Is it counseling? 

Mr. SKOGMO. Primarily, education as opposed to treatment, 

which is much more involved. One of my concerns is that early 

intervention programs are pretty much unfunded. There’s prevention programs and there’s treatment programs, but for kids who 

are experimenting and getting in trouble, you almost have to wait 

until they have a severe problem before you see them in treatment. 

The State, in this case, is really not funding. There are some local 

funds available, but as far as State funding, it’s nonexistent. 

Mr. HASTERT. Once a kid is in a treatment program, what’s your 

recidivism rate? 

Mr. SKOGMO. Again, depending on the nature and the severity of 

the problem, but it’s as low as 8 percent and as high as 60 percent. 

Mr. HASTERT. What are the circumstances that come into play? 

Mr. SKOGMO. Certainly, family involvement is a clear determinant of lower rate of recidivism. School involvement, support 

system and a network of support system. One of the things that we 

would like to try to do, since most of the referrals that we get are 

not self-referrals, we would like to have a little leverage, whether 

it’s a school or whether it’s the court system, to try to get the parents involved as much as possible. We have a contract, for instance, 

for adult offenders who are suspected of having drug abuse problems. We don’t have such a program for youth offenders and I 

think one of the things that we would like to see for both early 

intervention and treatment would be a program that would mandate if we had recommended or if any service provider recommended family involvement in education, intervention and treatment of the child. 

Mr. HASTERT. What kind of programs do you think are most effective? We just passed a piece of legislation out of Congress, AntiDrug Coalition, and what it does is say the community base organizations, faith base, fraternity base organizations that are grassroots community prevention programs, probably—making an assumption, true in some cases, not true in others—are very effective 

because every community knows and they pull those community resources together to get Federal funding, although, not a lot. Well, 

if they get to throw Federal dollars to everything. But those people 

who are working in their own communities and trying to better 

that need some help and we’re trying to do that. Do you see a lot 

of those programs? Are they, in your opinion, successful or are the 

professional programs better or what? 

Mr. SKOGMO. I think, like most things, a combination of professional and activity-oriented. I think it’s been talked about quite a 

bit today about activities and sports and keeping kids busy. I think 

it’s, you know, certainly an essential part of when you’re dealing 

25

with drug abuse with kids. But certainly the more formal treatment programs and prevention and education programs and getting the family involved as much as possible, whether it’s a single 

parent family or a nuclear family. I think family involvement professionally is very important. 

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Lunsmann, you’re in an anti-gang. That’s 

what your profession is right now. It was very enlightening. I think 

these gentlemen talked about what the recruiting is and what the 

appeal is. It’s an appeal that not a lot of kids, especially who 

maybe don’t have support that they should have, it’s pretty attractive to do that. 

If we could do three or four things, what are the three or four 

most important things that the Federal Government or State government or local government can do to help this problem? 

Mr. LUNSMANN. No. 1, financing is always the root of every problem we have when we’re trying to help children. We have a small 

program locally here called the Bridges Program to help kids get 

out of gangs or try to help them find the right way on their own 

with their parents. Running that program successfully is always 

having money to do it. 

Other than that, federally, I think your biggest thing that you 

can do is maybe try to help stiffen up these drug laws. When we 

have somebody getting arrested numerous times, make the Federal 

laws a little harsher. You’ve done it with organized crime members 

and I see the gang bangers as organized crime dealing drugs. I 

don’t know if all the Rico statutes affect drug dealing, but that 

works pretty good with dealing with the mafia. Information like 

that would help, but giving the assistance we need and getting 

input from the people on the street that do it instead of just the 

people that administrate the money. Have some kind of system 

that gets the input of the people that deal with the drug abusers 

and the gang bangers hand to hand. Somehow, getting a system to 

get that information to you. That would help the most. 

I’ve been in the middle and I’ve been on the bottom and each 

time we get from the top, the information as far as grants go. Recently, I know one instance where the McHenry County Sheriff’s 

Office within the last year made an arrest and they were going to 

cut funding for the prosecutor because it wasn’t a task force situation. They were still arresting a big drug dealer and prosecuting a 

big drug dealer, but they were told by the people giving the grant 

to the county to prosecute them that because they weren’t part of 

the multi-jurisdictional task force, they couldn’t use that prosecutor 

who was a top notch drug prosecutor to prosecute this man. That 

kind of stuff would help us on the street a lot out here. 

Mr. HASTERT. What we really need to do, one of the panels we 

had this morning which was more a law enforcement panel at that 

point, but they basically said they had to share resources and 

spend some time working together instead of at odds with each 

other. Would you agree with that? 

Mr. LUNSMANN. A hundred percent. 

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Chavez, anything you want to add? 

Mr. CHAVEZ. Yes. Well, it’s definitely parents’ involvement. It’s 

crucial to have some type of educational programs for parents at 

the early intervention, even prevention, area. It’s crucial to get the 

26

parents involved in their children’s activities. We need more adult 

supervision and something that I would like to add is about the 

clothing, talking about gangs. We know for a fact there’s a lot of 

new fashions like the baggy pants and there are a lot of kids who 

are not involved in gangs that like to wear those and sometimes 

people misunderstand that idea. If a kid is wearing the cool baggy 

pants and Nike shoes on the street, a lot of people think that 

they’re all gang members and it’s not true. We have to really know 

exactly what the kid is wearing every day, and the colors and the 

kind of Black Hawk shirts and all those to distinguish from different gangs. If you see a kid with baggy pants and just a white 

t-shirt, that doesn’t mean that it’s a gang and again, people have 

that misunderstanding. 

Definitely, I believe strongly in prevention. I know the after 

school programs work but again, if we don’t have the parents getting involved in the kids’ activities, again we’re just working 30 

percent of what we should be doing. And I can talk to kids about 

dangers of drugs and alcohol and as soon as they walk in at home, 

the father is totally wasted, drunk, you know. What good am I 

doing? So I would definitely ask for even some mandatory programs for parents whose kids are problems, getting involved in 

problems. I will definitely encourage to have some mandatory educational, prevention, education programs for parents to work with 

other organizations and churches and everything and provided in, 

again, English and probably Spanish as well because culturally 

speaking there’s big differences like when we have programs for African Americans and so on and so forth. Definitely, it will be the 

biggest thing. My goal is to get parents involved in my kids’ activities. 

Mr. HASTERT. Pam, you are a parent. You’ve been through the 

wars probably and most heart crushing experiences on this. A little 

bit you have to reflect, I guess, in your involvement as a parent. 

When you first got involved, you didn’t think there was a problem. 

What would your counseling or recommendations be, first of all, to 

people who want to get parents involved and second, to parents? 

Ms. MAAKESTAD. I really don’t have a real answer for you other 

than when I was going through the treatment with my daughter, 

the treatment at Rosecrantz up in Rockford was completely different from the treatment—I didn’t learn a thing when I went to 

the Rosecrantz treatment. When I went to Laconda Interventions 

Contact and DuPage Interventions Contact. I think you have to be 

careful who you’re dealing with as far as where you’re going to get 

your information from because things that I was told in Rockford 

about drugs and alcohol—didn’t have the gang influence at the 

time—but drugs and alcohol, a lot of the information that I got was 

wrong and it wasn’t—those types of things weren’t happening. You 

know, it wasn’t—she wasn’t in the normal group of things. 

Mr. HASTERT. How would you get parents—what would be your 

recommendation? How do you get parents’ attention to get them involved with their kids? You’ve been through it. 

Ms. MAAKESTAD. A lot of times through the schools. The schools 

would send home papers asking the parents to be part of the programs. 

Mr. HASTERT. Does it work? 

27

Ms. MAAKESTAD. It did with me. I don’t know how well it 

worked. I know with the soccer programs and softball and Little 

League and that type of thing we had a success rate with the parents. But, at that time they weren’t doing the drug and alcohol programs and such as they do now. 

Mr. HASTERT. Don. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We’re talking about 

after the fact here. My question is why does or how or what makes 

a kid want to get involved in using drugs and then go into gangs? 

Just step back once. Les, you work with hundreds of kids and we 

have lunch there a couple of months ago. You shared with me some 

of the stories. The reason I ask that is that my kids are 9, 11 and 

13 and I spend a lot of time with them, as much time as I can, 

and it’s quite a bit considering my schedule. But I’m very much 

concerned on what there would be in the mind of a child that 

would make that child want to get involved in drugs and many 

times gangs. 

Mr. LUNSMANN. I feel that the answer to that question, if I knew 

an exact answer, I would be on the circuit across the United States. 

It’s hard to determine why each kid does what they do, but a majority of the time it has to do with peer pressure or who the kids 

are associating with and their freedom and time and space. People 

try to tend to blame it on bad parenting and dysfunctional families. 

I’ve had contact with kids from the best families that spend time 

daily with their children and the kids still get messed up with 

drugs. 

Mr. MANZULLO. If I could interrupt a second, this is what Jerome 

brought out, that often times people think the term dysfunctional 

families means a one parent household, and he was very careful to 

point out that the number of parents in a household has nothing 

to do with whether or not that family is dysfunctional. 

Mr. LUNSMANN. Very correct. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Well, what is it? Are parents spending too much 

time watching television or aren’t they talking to their kids any 

more? What’s going on in the American family today? 

Mr. LUNSMANN. My personal opinion is we give our kids more 

freedom than we had. I have no reason or know no reason why we 

do that. We don’t make our kids accountable any more. A lot of us, 

when we were young, our parents knew where we were at. They 

trusted us but they made us accountable for our actions. It’s not 

happening any more. We’ve brought children to the door step of 

parents in handcuffs before and they say, well, he was over at so 

and so’s house. It doesn’t happen that way. They go out and do 

their thing. They lie to their parents. They’re doing drugs at school. 

They’re stealing from their parents to buy the drugs. They’re stealing cars, taking them to Chicago to trade them for drugs. It’s a totally different animal. There’s no answer to that question. 

There are a lot of kids that are on drugs and in gangs because 

they come from a one parent family and the mother is working two 

jobs but there’s as many kids that belong to two parent families 

that have siblings that turn out to be honor students that don’t 

ever do drugs and they up doing drugs, dealing drugs, and end up 

in jail. It just has to do with their way of life and, once they start 

28

that way of life, it might happen because they get kicked off of the 

Little League team when they’re young. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Something simple. 

Mr. LUNSMANN. Right. But what you have to do is figure out a 

way to deal with it at the time and have an answer for them. Give 

them ramifications. If Rosecrantz doesn’t work and the kid gets in 

trouble again, make sure they know they’re going to get in trouble. 

One thing I want to cover that nobody asked a question on here 

was recidivism—you know what I’m talking about? 

Mr. MANZULLO. Repeat rate. 

Mr. LUNSMANN. Yes. It’s a lot. It’s a lot more than 8 percent and 

it’s closer to 60 or 70 percent, whatever he said. The number of 

kids that we arrested in the 81⁄2 years that I was on the Narcotics 

Task Force had to be 50 percent that had been in rehab at one time 

or the other, had been in a drug treatment program court ordered, 

and they end up back in there instead of going to jail. The reason 

that is, the judge tells them, next time we catch you, you’re going 

to go to jail. There’s no place to put juveniles. The juveniles ended 

up back on the street or in programs. If they went to jail once for 

a week, I think it would keep them from going back to treatment 

for 45 days for $4,000 a week or whatever it costs. That’s my personal opinion. 

Mr. HASTERT. Well, let me ask you gentlemen. Is the threat of 

going to jail, is that a deterrent? 

Mr. COLE. At the time, for me, it wasn’t. All my friends was in 

jail and it didn’t even matter to me. When I stopped playing football, when I was injured and I couldn’t play any more, all my buddies that I grew up with was either dead or in jail so I would have 

got more educated. That’s another thing. It’s funny because a lot 

of the young kids want to go to jail. They want to go to jail because 

they go to jail at a young age, 15 or 16, you put them in a penitentiary with guys 30, 35, 36, they come out on the street more wise. 

It’s just like going from high school to college. They come out of the 

penal system wiser than they was when they went on the street, 

street smarter than they was before they went in. So there’s got 

to be another way around this because I’m telling you. At the time, 

jail didn’t scare me at all. At all. The only thing that would frighten me, I didn’t want my mother to know I was selling drugs. I was 

more scared of her than I was any law enforcement agent. I mean 

seriously. I was more afraid of my mother than anything. 

Mr. HASTERT. Derrick, you related another episode or another 

time that your mother was really what got you out of drugs. Can 

you kind of tell us how that happened. 

Mr. SMITH. Basically, I came from a family where every Sunday 

you go to church. My mom and dad, they neither one smoked nor 

drank nor used profanity. I think I was the first one in the household to curse, the first one to drink, the first one to smoke, the first 

one to use drugs. So I don’t know if it was rebellion or what but 

I just wanted to hang out with fellas. While I was growing up, I 

had this thing where they always called me Church Boy, so I guess 

it was rebellion that I was doing against them but when I got into 

drugs, I ended up doing heroin and what got me off, I was at a 

drug house. They’re called shooting galleries and when you’re in a 

shooting gallery you have like one outfit they call—and now they 

29

have AIDS and hepatitis and everything like that. Back then it 

didn’t really matter. Nobody was really catching anything. Just 

getting high. 

So we were in this drug house and I got high and I had a vision 

and in this vision I saw this lady looked like she was kneeling by 

a bed and it was like it was cloudy and it was foggy and this was 

all while I was totally wasted. It was probably some of the best 

drugs I had ever had. And when I got through these clouds and 

this fog, I looked down and I went to touch the lady and she looked 

up and it was my mom and she was smiling and through this, it 

looked like everything just started being reciprocal. I saw my 

grandmother and I saw everybody. Seemed like everybody I loved 

all of a sudden, the vision of them popped up in my head. 

So I opened up my eyes and when I opened up my eyes, I wasn’t 

even high any more. And so first thing I did, I told my guys I had 

to go and so I ran all the way back home which was about 15 

blocks and for some reason I just told my mother I had to go back 

to DeKalb because I had a friend there and I said I just feel that 

he could take care of me. So she put me on a Greyhound bus and 

I got there and my friend picked me up and at that time, I would 

get sick because I was using drugs quite regularly. So while I was 

sick, I stayed 3 days and I mean I was real sick and I kept telling 

my friend I had to go to Chicago. There’s no way I could take this 

pain, and he just kept saying just listen. He was reading the Bible 

to me. So he read the Bible for 3 days and 3 days I cussed at him 

and did everything else and told him I had to go and he would sit 

on me and just keep reading. 

So I don’t know, I just, it was like I finally got my own mind 

back and I told him at that time I said I was going to make a vow 

to God that if I could get off drugs now, I’d never go back. I’d never 

put another needle in my arm. And that was in June 1977, and 

that was the last time that I used drugs. So when a lot of kids ask 

me what kind of rehabilitation that you have, how long you stay 

in rehab, I can’t really answer that question. I still don’t know 

today. I tell them, you know, it was the Lord doing it because when 

I went in that house, that drug house, I didn’t go in that drug 

house looking for God. I went to get high and that’s what I was 

at the time. So, you know, that’s why basically right now and since 

1977 I’ve spent all my energy and all my time trying to tell young 

people about the dangers of drugs, the dangers of gangs because it 

wasn’t until then I got out of the gang. 

And a lot of kids ask me, how can you get out of gangs, and I 

say one simple method. Next time they have a meeting, you go to 

the meeting and you tell them hey, God touched my life. We all 

need to go to church Sunday morning and we need to be saved, I 

said, and they will get away from you because they will think 

you’re crazy, and that’s how I got out. Basically they were calling 

me Jesus Christ and stuff like that but nobody never bothered me 

again about coming to meetings and, you know, things I had to do 

in order to stay in the gang. So I told them that’s my foolproof 

method, you know. Tell them let’s go to church Sunday. 

Mr. MANZULLO. I have a repeat question. Mr. Skogmo, you said 

there were three levels of treatment and one level that there was 

a hole in it that you couldn’t get started because of lack of funding. 

30

Mr. SKOGMO. Yes. Primarily early intervention. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Explain that again because that’s a need that’s 

not being filled. Is that correct? 

Mr. SKOGMO. Yes. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Explain that again. What is that aimed at? 

What’s the focus? 

Mr. SKOGMO. The focus is on we get a number of referrals from 

the court system or from the school system. A kid will come in and 

he’s high. Maybe the first time he’s ever done drugs. We will get 

a referral to provide some services. He may—and probably isn’t 

hard core at all but he’s beginning to experiment. Early intervention is designed to intervene at that point to get the child hooked 

up with other, more healthy choices, to get the family involved and 

to allow, in our case, our agency to work with the school system. 

So it’s at that point. It’s different from prevention. Prevention is 

just like it says. It’s to prevent drug abuse, and that’s a great program and it provides all kinds of information to kids and families 

and so on. 

Treatment. Certainly treatment, I don’t think anybody would 

argue that treatment is not needed but the early intervention program is something that kind of falls in the middle and a lot of 

times it is ignored. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Denny and I have asked the same question with 

regard to getting parents involved. Years ago, if you had an assembly asking parents to come for a meeting on drug abuse, the gymnasium would be full. Today, you’ll get the organizers to show up 

and perhaps one or two more parents that will come. What I have 

noticed in talking to parents and talking to kids and based upon 

my personal experience of being involved in the juvenile justice system for 22 years, before I was elected to Congress, is that parents 

of teens today have lived through drugs in school and they have 

the attitude that well, I lived through it and came out OK and my 

kids can do the same thing, not realizing, as we said earlier, that 

the potency of drugs—Denny, what is it? Heroin is 90 percent pure 

and it used to be 4 to 6 percent pure? 

Mr. HASTERT. Yes. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Ten years ago. Is that parents can become complacent thinking that this is just a phase through which their children will pass on the road to becoming a successful citizen knowing 

full well that the ultimate price could be your child being gunned 

down on the courthouse steps of a small town like Sycamore, leading to that horrible end. So, I don’t know if any of you has any 

views on how to reach into the community? How do you impress 

upon parents the absolute necessity that this is a life and death 

struggle and that the kids that don’t die from getting addicted to 

drugs many times will have their lives messed up until they die at 

a normal age. What do you do? What’s the answer? 

Mr. CHAVEZ. I would like to say that unfortunately a lot of people 

live in denial saying oh, it will never happen to my kid. No, my 

kid is all right. He’s going to school. He’s attending this, this and 

that. He plays the flute, whatever. It will never happen to him. 

When it happens, it’s like the biggest eye opener and unfortunately 

it’s way too late. That’s based on my experience and what I have 

seen. 

31

Another thing that I have seen and when he was talking about 

to be afraid of the mother. The parents are not allowed to discipline 

their kids any more and a lot of concerned parents are telling me, 

I cannot tell anything to my son because he’s telling me I’ll call the 

police and you’ll be arrested. So they don’t know how to discipline, 

I’m not talking about violent ways to discipline a kid but now the 

kids are using that as a weapon that you do something to me or 

you’re planning to, I’ll call the police and you’re going to get arrested. And again, I’m speaking of my experience with Latinos and 

immigrants. There’s a big fear. It’s like what am I going to do? I 

have another two kids. If I go to jail, I have to pay a bond. In the 

mean time, there’s 2 or 3 days, at least 1, that I’m going to miss 

at work. That’s money. 

So they’re kind of—there is a lot of frustration that I can see in 

the parents that they do really want to discipline their kids but 

there’s a fear because of that reason and again, I’ve seen it over 

and over and over and over again and a lot of parents call me and 

tell me, What do I do? How far as a parent I can go to discipline 

my kid in order not to be involved in a criminal activity, you know, 

spanking or domestic violence or so on and so forth. And they really don’t know where the line of how far you can go in a discipline 

action to your kid. And the kids are very brave, you know. Go 

ahead. Go ahead. You know, I’ll call the police. It’s as simple as 

that. So then the parents go like, OK, OK, just don’t do it again 

and that’s it. That’s not a way to collaborate. 

And another thing that has been happening is as long as nothing 

happens in my house, I don’t care what happens to the neighbors. 

Mr. MANZULLO. The time for parents to get involved is before 

there is a problem. 

Mr. CHAVEZ. Right. 

Mr. HASTERT. It doesn’t happen. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Doesn’t happen. 

Mr. HASTERT. Jerome, I’ll give you the last shot here. Derrick 

talked just a little bit about how he’d go about telling kids not to 

get involved in this. You said you were afraid of your mother. I 

guess maybe we’re all like that at one time or another. But what 

would your advice be to a kid who’s thinking about being a gang 

banger or trying to get involved in drugs? What would your advice 

be to him? First off, if he’s in a gang, how to get out and how not 

to get in in the first place. 

Mr. COLE. Well, it’s pretty hard to get out of a gang once you’re 

in. You can’t get out. A lot of times the gang members will respect 

you if they see that you really truly are trying to change your life. 

I’ve seen that a lot. It happened with me. 

To prevent the kids from getting in gangs, I just hope—I just 

think that it’s the programs outside of school that helps the most. 

I mean sometime you can’t get—some kids can’t get close to their 

parents and they need—they talk to their peers. They talk to their 

peers and they talk to counselors more so than they do their parents. I know it’s a lot of things that I got friends and counselors 

know about me that, like I said, I wouldn’t even tell my mother. 

So you do need intervention from church programs and school programs and YMCAs and different things like that. Those are the 

things that will help the kid, you know, get away from drugs and 

32

gangs. It’s not impossible. It’s possible to do but if things keep 

going the way they are now, it will be no county in America safe 

from gangs and drugs. It’s almost like that now. 

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you. 

I guess in closing, I’ll recall a conversation I had with a group 

of kids out in Dixon, IL. They were 250 eighth graders, pretty vulnerable age, and they were all in this middle school and it was a 

couple of months ago right before they were ready to graduate and 

go into high school. We were talking about it and they asked questions about being a Member of Congress and I asked them a couple 

of questions. We were talking about drugs and I asked them, how 

many of them—there were 250 of them. How many of them have 

had their parents talk to them about drugs? About 40 of them 

raised their hand out of 250. That’s less than 20 percent. I think 

that’s probably one of our problems today. Of course, you can’t 

point your fingers at all parents and some are more perceptive 

than others, but what we need, if anything, is to keep this communication up and have parents get involved. I guess you do that 

through community organizations and community information and 

stuff so that they do have an interest in their kids and talk about 

it. 

One of the things that Don and I talked about earlier today that 

a lot of these parents, the parents now had gone through the 1970’s 

and been through the drug cultures. They say well, I lived through 

it, so I guess my kid can live through it today. But it’s different. 

Drugs are tougher and there’s more stuff around than there was 

in the 1970’s. 

First of all, we just want to say thanks to you folks for what you 

do day in and day out and for being here today and spending some 

time with us. What we hope to do with this information, we’re not 

going to take a magic wand and make laws out of everything, but 

to give us a better guidance on where to go. My committee has the 

job of re-authorization of the ONDCP which is the drug czar’s office 

this year and try to develop those programs. We also try to coordinate the $15 billion that we put into drug programs every year. 

Some of it’s effective and some of it isn’t. We’d like to get a better 

bang for our buck and make sure we find out what works and what 

doesn’t work. 

I have taken this on as a personal challenge for myself and other 

Members of Congress have, as well, to try in 4 years to use our efforts so that we can drastically reduce drug use in this country. I 

think that there are six areas that we have to look at. 

First of all is prevention. That’s home base. We’ve got to keep 

kids from getting involved in drugs and people from getting involved in drugs in the first place. 

Second is treatment. It’s there and it’s a problem we’ve got to 

face. There are those who have been involved and we’ve got to find 

the best way to deal with those folks and to get them out again. 

The best programs are where we don’t have the recidivism, if that’s 

possible. 

Third thing we have to do is what we do in our back yard: Law 

enforcement. We’ll have another panel in here and they will talk 

about that today. Those people who try to keep drugs off the street, 

to apprehend those people who are the bad guys, the dark side. The 

33

consequences you talk about, what you’ve been involved with for a 

number of years. How do we do a better job in law enforcement? 

We have local police. We have county police. We have State police. 

We have the Federal police. How can we better coordinate the 

courts and the prosecutors and judges and how do we do a better 

job to work together to stop? 

The other is just the interdiction area. Drugs coming across our 

border. We sit in this country with almost 2,000 miles of border 

from Texas to Baja, CA and it’s a pretty open sieve and a lot of 

stuff comes across those borders and we have four or five agencies 

down there, Customs, INS, DEA and Border Patrol. The problem 

is we have people in Customs, for instance, that can bid for those 

jobs and sit on that border for 20 years with their brother-in-law 

living across the border. It’s just ripe for corruption and we don’t 

do a very good job at our bureaucracy to correct the problem. 

On the other hand, the Coast Guard and others, we have 10,000 

boats as we speak moving through the Caribbean and the eastern 

Pacific, some of them loaded down with cocaine and heroin and 

marijuana and they can’t stop every boat and you can’t stop every 

truck. Intelligence has to be there and we have to be able to stop 

that stuff coming in. 

I’ve been in Peru and I’ve been in Bolivia and I’ve been in Colombia. I’ve been in Burma where the stuff comes from, and I’ll tell 

you, in the upper Gwaga Valley of Peru you can buy a kilo of cocoa 

paste. It’s not refined yet. If you ever saw how they make cocoa 

paste, it would turn your stomach. They strip these leaves and put 

it in a plastic pit and put fuel oil and gasoline on it. Then, they 

put the bicarbonate of soda which starts the chemical reaction and 

they strain all that stuff out and you never want to put it in your 

body, but that’s what we use. But, you can buy that cocoa paste 

for probably about—well, the market price was $400 per kilo. 

Today, because of Fujimore and the shootdown policy in Peru, it’s 

down to about $100 a kilo and farmers are walking away from 

their fields and not growing it because they can’t make a living off 

of it. That’s reduced cocoa growth in Peru 19 percent last year, 

they think another 25 percent. So, there’s all kinds of economic 

strategies out there to stem the flow of the stuff into the country. 

Finally, money laundering. Guys who grow cocaine, the FDLN 

which is the gorilla movement in Colombia that used to be supported by the communists in Russia and Cuba now support themselves by growing and distributing coke and moving it up through 

the system. The cartels, drug gangs in Mexico. None of them would 

be able to afford to grow it, manufacture it, smuggle it, get it across 

the border, distribute it if they couldn’t get the money back in their 

pockets. And so the whole money laundering piece is a big part of 

this, as well. 

All of those. I can’t say that maybe one is any more important 

than the other. They’re all balanced. We have to look at all of 

them, but especially the issue of how you stop people from using 

it, prevention is so important, and you’re right on the front line of 

that. We appreciate your work. We’ll try to take your ideas and 

work on them ourselves. Thank you for being with us and we’ll dismiss you at this time. Thank you. 

34

At this time, I’d like to introduce our second panel. First of all, 

Bill LeFew is a former mayor and current member of the Communities Against Drugs. We have a DEA Agent, Mr. Michael 

Zawadzki from Chicago. We’re also fortunate to have Sheriff 

Nygren before us. He’s the sheriff from McHenry County. Gary 

Pack is the State’s attorney for McHenry County. William Morley 

is the Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago Field Office 

of the Drug Enforcement Administration, DEA. We welcome him. 

In accordance with the House rules, we swear in everybody and 

I’m going to ask you to please stand and raise your right hands. 

[Witnesses sworn.] 

Mr. HASTERT. Let the record show that the witnesses answered 

in the affirmative. Mr. LeFew, if you’d like to start off. 

STATEMENTS OF BILL LEFEW, COMMUNITIES AGAINST 

DRUGS; MICHAEL ZAWADZKI, DEA AGENT FROM CHICAGO; 

SHERIFF NYGREN, MCHENRY COUNTY; GARY PACK, STATE’S 

ATTORNEY MCHENRY COUNTY; WILLIAM MORLEY, ASSISTANT SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE OF THE CHICAGO FIELD 

OFFICE, DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION 

Mr. LEFEW. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My present title is 

McHenry County treasurer but prior to that, I was mayor of Harvard and prior to that, I spent about 10 years in law enforcement. 

During my term as mayor of Harvard, the New York Times quoted 

us as passing the toughest anti-gang legislation in the Nation as 

far as a city. The problem is it was only city-wide. Presently in the 

State of Illinois, a person driving a car without auto insurance will 

suffer a greater fine monetarily than a person involved in a gang 

fight in our county. There is an inequity there. 

Not only do we need tough anti-gang laws but, in my opinion, we 

also need education, and that’s what we did during my term as 

mayor. Prior to enforcing any of our anti-gang laws, we required 

all of our gang officers to go to our local schools and met with every 

single classroom from kindergarten to seniors in high school to explain what gangs are, why you don’t want to be in them, and how 

to get out of them. 

County-wide we were involved in the northern Illinois Gang Task 

Force, but that required us—our community—to donate an officer 

at a cost of approximately $40,000 out of our budget to that task 

force because it was not funded, and we gladly did that. 

It appears to me, Mr. Chairman, that we have become a reactive 

society. Instead of trying to prevent problems such as drug abuse 

and gang tactics, we react to them after they become so severe that 

we can no longer tolerate them. One of the main solutions that we 

did at Harvard and I think would be advisable elsewhere is we sat 

down with law enforcement officials and point blank asked them 

what they needed to get the job done. They told us they needed 

higher fines and they needed stiffer laws and they needed them to 

read in a certain way, and we gave it to them. Then, as elected officials, we got out of the way because we in McHenry County, as we 

did in Harvard, have professional law enforcement people, as we do 

in Sheriff Nygren and we need to make sure that they have a clean 

slate to deal with the gangs and the drugs that are in our community. 

35

The biggest problem facing elected officials, as of ourselves, is, 

first of all, standing up and admitting we have a gang problem and 

a drug problem. I think it’s great that you’re having these hearings. Most elected officials in McHenry County are very hesitant to 

say that. The one thing that I need to say loudly and clearly in 

McHenry County, gangs are here. They’re not looking at McHenry. 

They’re not thinking about coming to McHenry County. They’re not 

maybe planning to get here. Gangs are here. They are alive in 

every single community and we need to federally take action to 

make sure that they don’t cross borders and continue what they’ve 

done in our community. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you. 

Sheriff. 

Mr. NYGREN. Thank you. Anybody who thinks that gangs and 

drugs aren’t a problem in McHenry County is simply kidding themselves. The county is seeing phenomenal growth. I’ve been involved 

in law enforcement here for about 26 years and I’ve seen all of our 

communities, whether it’s unincorporated McHenry County or 

Algonquin or Lake in the Hills or Crystal Lake or Morengo. It’s 

doesn’t matter. I’ve seen a change. There was a time when law enforcement officers knew the children in the neighborhoods, knew 

the families, and there was a relationship which doesn’t always 

exist now. You can go to any of the malls and you won’t know 

seven-eighths of the people that are there, so that closeness that 

existed with fewer people is evaporating on a daily basis. 

We have taken a very proactive approach to drug enforcement in 

this county, both on a regional level through the North Central 

Narcotics Task Force on the local level, and I believe that if there’s 

an area that we can succeed in, it’s in local cooperation. The sheriff’s department, all the police departments in McHenry County 

have a very close working relationship when it comes to gang enforcement and when it comes to drug enforcement. 

We recently cooperatively, through the Chiefs of Police Association, formed a McHenry County Gang Task Force and the purpose 

of that task force is to pair up deputies from the sheriff’s department along with men and women, sworn officers from other departments, to go into specific communities where the problems are and 

work together, and we’re seeing some positive effects from that 

kind of approach. 

In law enforcement, we’ve seen a need and we’re involved in educational programs. Education over the long term may be the ultimate answer. I don’t know. Changing people’s attitudes so that 

they do the right thing because they want to do the right thing 

seems to be more effective than you and I standing over their 

shoulder and telling them what to do. I think education is one of 

the areas that we need to do more in. 

We have an intelligence gathering process where we gather information, and information is power. The sharing of information 

amongst law enforcement empowers us. It gives us an ability to 

know what’s going on. These people are mobile. They constantly 

move from area to area. 

Third, is just plain law enforcement. Good law enforcement, 

whether it be drugs or gangs. Getting out there, making the arrest. 

36

The media helps us by publicizing those kinds of campaigns so that 

there is a price to pay and people who play that game know that 

there is, in fact, a price to pay. 

But there may be a fourth prong that we’re missing and that’s 

the treatment area, and the treatment area involving law enforcement. We began a pilot program in Crystal Lake, and what we decided to do was educate, gather information and enforce, but we 

also wanted to get involved at the law enforcement level with treatment and that was a program to bring the parents of youngsters 

who are involved in gang activity representing whether they’ve 

been arrested or not, somehow where we could articulate they were 

involved in gangs, together once a month with other parents who 

are having the same problem. Now, there’s strength in numbers 

and when people see that they have the same problem that you do, 

they’re more open than when it’s just one on one, a police officer 

and a family. We’re taking a look at that program in Crystal Lake 

to see how that works out. If we can bring the treatment people 

in at that level where parents are saying, I have a friend who has 

the same problem. They’re receptive to counseling, they’re receptive 

to intervention. We may have a new twist to the law enforcement 

approach which involves also the treatment aspect. We’ve kind of 

left that to the professionals in the past, and I think we need to 

start doing that at our law enforcement level. 

The problem isn’t going to go away any time soon. I think what 

we need to do to begin to work on some of this, we have regional 

programs, we have Federal programs and we’d be in trouble without them, but we have to learn something from the gangs. We can 

take a pearl of wisdom from what they do. They create a situation 

where they have a turf. It’s their area. They protect it. They fight 

for it. We have to create that same kind of territorial imperative 

for law enforcement. We have to have programs that trickle down 

on the local level where people say, OK, now you’re threatening 

Crystal Lake, McHenry County, Lake in the Hills, Ogonquin, and 

we’re going to fight back. When you have people fighting for their 

own neighborhoods, when you have people who can impact that 

kind of a battle, you’re going to see more successes than when they 

get diluted out in the outer reaches in the Federal programs. 

So from a law enforcement standpoint, I’d like to see more of 

those billions of dollars filter down to local programs and filter 

down to local programs with cooperative efforts between jurisdictions. You have to work together. You have to find community solutions to your problems, use community resources, and those are the 

programs that I think that need to be funded more than they are. 

Thank you. 

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you, Sheriff. 

Mr. Pack. 

Mr. PACK. Thank you. I’ve been prosecutor in McHenry County 

for about 17 years, so I’ve seen the crime in McHenry County, the 

whole county, about 17 years. About 7 years ago we could say there 

wasn’t even crack in the county. We had our first case of crack 

about 7 years ago. Now it’s 10 to 15 cases. So if you look at it statistically, I guess it’s 1,000 percent increase. But as far as the population of McHenry County goes, we have increased so much and 

I think that the law enforcement has done a good job in containing 

37

a lot of this but there’s still a major problem. We didn’t have any 

gangs either 7 years ago. You can look around the surrounding 

counties, what they were like about 10 years ago. Many of them 

didn’t take the gang problem seriously. 

McHenry County saw the problem coming. About 5 years ago we 

started many programs, task force to investigate the possibility of 

gangs coming and what we could do about it. We hired—even the 

State’s attorney’s office got involved in the law enforcement part of 

it by hiring Les Lunsmann as an investigator, as a link to the task 

force. He was a link between the State’s attorney’s office and the 

task force. He’s done a wonderful job of containing gang activity. 

But the problem is there. There’s still denial in McHenry County 

also of gang activity. The problem is there. Is it a major problem? 

I think it’s all relative. It’s a major problem to the extent that it 

is a very serious potential problem. 

The problems that we have are mostly turf fights. The gangs 

come up here. They’re wannabes. They are transplants from other 

areas. They come up here and they have a turf fight. We had a few 

drive by shootings. We never had drive by shootings until last year 

or so. We’ve had two of them so far. Is that serious? Maybe to Kane 

County, maybe to Page County, to Cook County it’s not that serious. To us, anything is serious involving gang activity. 

We also need the support of the parents. We have a lot of parents 

in some of these schools that come up and say, well, they don’t 

want to adhere to this dress code. Well, it’s a dress code that gets 

a lot of these kids in trouble. If the kid is wearing the wrong colors, 

wearing the wrong symbols, that kid could be in danger. Most of 

the gangs here are fights. They’re gang fights. They’re turf fights 

over symbols, over colors. 

We do not have a place for juvenile delinquents to go. A lot of 

these kids are picked up, gang fight or whatever. They are not detained because there is no juvenile detention center in McHenry 

County, one of the biggest counties in the State. We have no center. If a police officer wants to detain them, if the courts want to 

detain them, they have to go down to Bloomington and that takes 

almost a day out of an officer’s schedule just to detain juveniles. 

So most of them don’t take the criminal justice system seriously 

and we need to take it more seriously. 

Now, as law enforcement, we do treat it very seriously, gang activities. In fact, we consider it even an aggravating factor. But we 

also know that jail sentences are not the total answer. It may keep 

them off the streets for a while, but we need the treatment also. 

We’re very strong proponents of treatment and intervention also. 

We need the prevention money. We need intervention money. 

You’re heard some of these programs before like the Bridges. These 

are very necessary programs in our county. We do react. We have 

many organizations of people who do care. What we’re lacking is 

money for those people who do care to supplement their programs. 

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Morley. 

Mr. MORLEY. Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman. I believe I’m the lone representative here from the Federal Government, and I want to say 

that we do care. Gangs have developed in virtually every major city 

in the country. Even the smaller towns are no longer immune to 

the violence and the drug activity that goes along with the gang 

38

activity. Some of the larger gangs have moved into the rural areas, 

as you know, and even the gangs that were in Chicago, the Gangster Disciples, the Vice Lords, the Latin Kings, all of them or those 

three gangs at least have moved out to McHenry County here and 

they have tentacles out in the county and have established a presence out here. 

The Federal Government is very aware of this problem and what 

they have done is they have established a mobile enforcement team 

to combat the gangs and drug violence that goes along with the 

gangs. It’s called the Mobile Enforcement Team. There’s 20 divisions around the country. All of the divisions have at least one Mobile Enforcement Team. Chicago itself has one. We have deployed 

up until this point in about four cities so far. We’ve been very successful, I believe. 

The team consists of 10 agents and a group supervisor, and they 

will, at the request of a State and/or local prosecutor or chief of police, depending on if it meets the requirements of the Mobile Enforcement Team, they will deploy to that city and stay there for as 

long as it takes to solve the problem. Chicago, as I said, has completed four of these deployments now and we’re currently deployed 

somewhere else and we’ve got several other deployments on line 

but this is something that the Federal Government is very serious 

about and we believe that it has been very successful thus far. 

Thank you. 

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Zawadzki. 

Mr. ZAWADZKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am the Demand Reduction Coordinator, a Special Agent for the Chicago Field Division. I’m in attendance. I’m a Member of Congressman Manzullo’s 

Anti-Drug Coalition out in Rockford. Mr. Morley is a Supervisory 

Special Agent of our front office, so he’s probably more equipped to 

answer any questions. I brought him along. 

Mr. HASTERT. Why don’t you just tell us a little bit what you’re 

doing in demand reduction. 

Mr. ZAWADZKI. Well, first of all, I handle the five State region. 

I have Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Indiana and Illinois. 

We have four priority programs essentially that come out of Washington, DC, one of them being working with anti-drug coalitions, 

working in an advisory capacity as well as getting more involved 

in the coalition, particularly in the community as far as initiating 

drug awareness programs in school districts, as well as with civic 

organizations. 

One of the other priorities that we’ve been handling recently is 

anti-legalization training, training people about the issues of legalization, more of the con than the pro, and drugs in the work place 

also. Obviously, drugs, it’s a gang problem. It’s been a problem everywhere and it’s also infiltrated the business groups. 

As Demand Reduction Coordinator, I’m tasked with either implementing the programs myself or assisting and guiding businesses, 

civic organizations and coalitions in working with their own programs within their own community. 

Mr. HASTERT. What tactics are you using that are effective on 

drugs in the work place? 

Mr. ZAWADZKI. In drugs in the work place, it’s specifically geared 

toward awareness for the supervisors. I guess historically or at 

39

least in the last 10 years since 1988 when the act came in, many 

of the problems with drugs in the work place had to do with the 

fact that many of the people who were supervising either 10 or 

more people, say for instance, are not in the position to recognize 

or don’t have the training to recognize when somebody’s showing 

up and working when they’re on drugs—drugs or alcohol abuse but 

specifically drugs in this case—to try to train them what exactly 

to look for when it comes to that. 

Many of the businesses will ask for a little bit of background information on how they can comply with the Drug Work Place Act, 

but 95 percent of the training that I would give to a business—a 

small business or a large business, many of them are small businesses—would be what to look for when someone is on drugs. 

Mr. HASTERT. What about the common sense—I use the word 

common sense—advice that you give to people that have to deal 

with folks who want to legalize drugs? What are you telling them 

or what kind of strategies are you using there? 

Mr. ZAWADZKI. Common, you mean just anybody that would ask? 

Mr. HASTERT. Basically, the people that you deal with, you have 

to give information they can use. I call that common sense. 

Mr. ZAWADZKI. OK. When it comes to telling people about—many 

of the questions that come out is that they’re hearing a lot of information recently about the pros to legalization. One of the arguments is that you can’t use law enforcement to eliminate the drug 

problem away so why don’t we just legalize it and, you know, it’s 

a simple solution to a complex problem. One of the responses to 

that is that we have to look at the long term ramifications of something like that. For instance, if we were to legalize marijuana, 

what are we going to do? We’re going to have even more people 

walking around stoned than we already have now? 

If there is a common sense approach to it, normally it kind of 

goes along those lines that if someone is smoking marijuana now, 

they’re breaking the law. There are some deterrent effects to that. 

Many people are confused about some of the information they receive about the deterrent effects that actually the illegality of the 

use has on a person. 

Specifically, when high school seniors, which you’re getting into 

more of an adulthood group, are polled and they’re asked about not 

so much their marijuana use but if they are users and they have 

curtailed some of their marijuana, is the fact that it’s illegal. A little bit of a deterrent that they’ve curtailed and indeed, more than 

60 percent respond yes. A common sense approach to someone who 

would argue for legalization more or less using the same example 

you used earlier about I lived through it, my kids live through it, 

you know, my kids should get through it also would be that can 

you imagine what the statistics would read if it was legal? 

Mr. HASTERT. I mean you hear a lot of folks say, well, you know, 

during the depression and right before the depression, during that 

period of time prior to that, we outlawed alcohol and you had more 

bootleggers and you had lost taxes and you had legitimate business 

people that became outlaws and all that kind of stuff. How do you 

deal with that? How do you deal with that kind of information? 

Mr. ZAWADZKI. With the argument prohibition didn’t work and 

this would be considered the same. While some of the information 

40

that they have about prohibition is, again, it’s—there is truth out 

there and then there’s lies and, in order to work their way through 

it, the best way to tell them is that well, you know, say, for instance, before prohibition was repealed, 35 percent of a reduction 

in cirrhosis of the liver, health consequences. Many of the things 

that people don’t think about. Much of—many people did not—

much of the argument you get about alcohol use during prohibition 

was that it never changed. Well, as a matter of fact, it increased 

the use of the drug—well, the use of alcohol in that sense, it increased once it was legalized. And then that’s the same argument 

that can apply to marijuana. Specifically, being the next gateway 

drug. 

One of the other common sense approaches to the argument 

would be in talking about the gateway system where it starts with 

tobacco and it goes from alcohol and then now marijuana. Essentially, we are dealing with two legal drugs and if we were to make 

marijuana legal, now we’re essentially dealing with three legal 

drugs and then after that, the gateway process, we can start talking about cocaine. Statistics show that that would be the next drug. 

So I guess what we’re saying is 30, 40, 50 years from now, maybe 

then we can just go ahead and legalize cocaine and then so forth 

and so on. 

Mr. HASTERT. The record of places like Switzerland hasn’t been 

real good, Holland and other places. 

Mr. ZAWADZKI. Much of the training for the educators in the 

school districts is what I give for—I bring in a lot of the experiments that were done overseas. Yes. 

Mr. HASTERT. Sheriff, you’ve had a pretty good record. Just recently also an apprehension of illegal drugs. You talked a lot about 

being able to work together and share resources, something that 

the district that I represent just south of here, our circuit has Kane 

and DeKalb and Kendall County together. Surprisingly, a couple or 

2 or 3 years ago, I got States attorneys, judges, chiefs of police, 

sheriffs, together just to sit down and talk. To my amazement, even 

though they’re in the same circuit, they never really sat down and 

shared information and talked about what they did and how they 

can share cases that move around. The thing is if things got tough 

in Elgin, those kids ended up selling drugs in Sycamore. If they got 

tough in Aurora, they ended up in Plaino and Swago and other 

places, and I’m sure it’s the same situation here. 

How have you gone about to do this? How have you set this thing 

up? 

Mr. NYGREN. Well, yes, you’re right. It’s amazing when you form 

partnerships and what you can accomplish so much more. It’s not 

hard to set. It’s just take a first step and say, you know, I’m willing 

to share my information. I’m willing to share my authority or whatever authority I may think I have with you and will you do the 

same with me for the good of the community? And when you start 

to do those things, not just in police circles, but out in the public. 

The public very much wants to be our eyes and our ears and our 

help. 

Law enforcement traditionally felt that it was a law enforcement 

function. Leave it alone. We’ll do it. We have learned over the 

years that we can’t. Groups like Communities Against Gangs want 

41

to help us. PTAs and PTOs in the schools, church groups, Neighborhood Watches. Traditional law enforcement didn’t always get 

the job done. Community policing. The idea that you partner up 

with your community and you use the resources of people who do 

have a reason to fight the fight I think are going to be the most 

successful. And it’s not hard at all to get other groups involved. 

You simply have to open the door and say, ‘‘Come on in and they’re 

more than willing to help out.’’

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. LeFew, you’re now Treasurer of McHenry 

County but you were the mayor of Harvard. I have to go back into 

my other life. I was a wrestling coach at a place called Yorkville. 

Yorkville and Harvard went around a lot. 

Mr. LEFEW. Yes, I know that very well. 

Mr. HASTERT. Back in the days of John Shocco and others, so I 

have a great respect for your community and what you’ve done. 

You said you did a lot of work while you were mayor in the community groups, that you actually went into the schools. Were the kids 

receptive when you did that? 

Mr. LEFEW. They really were and I think it’s important that, 

while our ordinance got the biggest share of the media attention, 

I think the most important thing was what we did in the schools 

and church groups and things like that. We had people like Les 

Lunsmann going, people that really knew gangs. You can’t have 

someone going and talk to kids about gangs that really don’t understand them because they’ll turn them off. They won’t listen. But we 

had people going in and it was very well received. 

Also, we had two meetings of all the parents in the community 

were invited to the schools at night and we made sure that we had 

bilingual translators. 

Mr. HASTERT. Good turn out? 

Mr. LEFEW. Excellent turn out. Packed the gymnasium because 

people wanted to know and at those meetings we gave the parents 

the symbols that the one lady was talking about from Sycamore 

and the colors and the listings of some of the things that parents 

needed to look for. This is a new problem. While the parents of 

today came through the drug generation, they did not come 

through the gang generation and this is brand new turf, brand new 

area for them, and we really need to do a better job on educating 

them and giving them resource materials to deal with. 

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you. 

Congressman. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Denny talked about his background before he became a Congressman. I sometimes see what goes on in chambers 

and appreciate the fact that he’s a former wrestling coach. Comes 

in handy at times. 

You know, when I first became a Congressman back in January 

1993, I had a letter on my desk from the mayor of Rockford asking 

us to get a full-time DEA office and it wasn’t too long after that 

that I met your boss, Tom Constantine, in a meeting before the 

International Relations Committee, the subcommittee on the Pacific on which I serve. I went up to him and I introduced myself 

and I said, you know, we have a tremendous need in Rockford, IL. 

Well, he was aware of that because the trek for drugs comes from 

42

Chicago, makes a turn directly north just outside of Rockford on its 

way to the Twin Cities. 

I think it was within—I know I sent him a letter the next day 

imploring him to open up a full-time DEA office. We got a call, I 

think within 2 weeks. Pam, I don’t know if you were in the Washington office or not, but a big cheer went up when we got the word 

that they were going to get a full-time office there and then, of 

course, it’s been a tremendous compliment in drug enforcement. 

One of the untold stories is that in our Federal district court, 

Judge Rhinehart will not fool around with people involved in drugs. 

Mike, you recall, was it last year when—how many young men got 

sentenced? Was it 16 of them? Do you recall? They were involved 

in a massive drug bust. 

Mr. ZAWADZKI. In Rockford? 

Mr. MANZULLO. That’s correct. 

Mr. ZAWADZKI. Yes. It was 18 people. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Eighteen people. Remember, a 20 year old was 

given life by the judge. 

Mr. ZAWADZKI. Right. 

Mr. MANZULLO. He said, if I had known I’d be going to prison 

for life, I wouldn’t have gotten involved in selling drugs. The judge 

said, go tell your friends that. 

Mr. ZAWADZKI. Yes, right. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Good bye. So we have the tremendous resource 

of a very tough Federal district judge that simply will not fool 

around with it. 

Bill, the problem that I have seen centers around parental involvement. You have a success story there in Harvard on how to 

get parents involved before their kids have an opportunity to taste 

the drug or to get involved in gang activity. I had to leave. I had 

to go outside. You have more constitution than I do, Denny, but I 

just had to take a break. Yes, before we get the coffee. But would 

you tell us, I mean how do you—you’ve got a small intact community there. Relatively small compared to the larger cities. What is 

it that peaks the interest of the parents that will get them to show 

up in assembly or to get them involved at an early stage? 

Mr. LEFEW. Well, there are a certain group of parents that will 

always show up, the ones that are actively involved. Generally, 

they’re not the ones—and there’s always exceptions but generally, 

they’re not the ones whose children you’re going to have the problems with. So we had a challenge to us to figure out how to get 

the parents of the ones that don’t show up. So what we did in one 

of our ordinances, we passed a curfew ordinance that said if your 

parent knows that you’re out after curfew and allows you to be out 

after curfew, you suffer the same fine. So it got the parents’ attention. We rarely, if ever, enforce that but when the parents started 

hearing not only may my child get a fine, but I may get a fine as 

well and instead of being the $20 or $30 fines for vandalism and 

the things that normally were, we’ve basically boosted all of our 

gang-related fines to $500. 

Vandalism by spray paint, for example, before our gang ordinance was $15. After our gang ordinance, it was $500. So it got the 

community’s attention very quickly and they all really came to find 

out what the gang ordinance was about. And Les Lunsmann and 

43

the police officers and our chief did an excellent job of educating 

them on what to look for and then we were getting calls from parents saying, hey, my son is doing this, my daughter is wearing this, 

would you come down and talk to her again, and we did and we 

got calls of children asking for help, parents asking for help to get 

them out of the gangs. So it was really a very big success story in 

our community. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Keith, the new task force that you have set up, 

how do you take that success story from Harvard and transmit that 

to the rest of the county? 

Mr. NYGREN. The current task force that we started up now is 

in cooperation with the County Chiefs of Police Association. We all 

collectively saw a need to have greater resources to battle the gang 

problem throughout the county. So what we’ve done is formed together. See, the pieces exist. Sometimes you don’t have to buy a 

new puzzle. You just have to fit the pieces that are already there 

together. Virtually every community in this country has one or two 

or more trained, experienced gang crimes officers. They’re already 

there. They exist. 

What we have to do now is bring them together collectively in 

a group so that if we’re experiencing, say, a problem in the Harvard area, we could take this gang task force—which, by the way, 

will be deputized county-wide so it’ll have authority throughout the 

county—into Harvard and that chief of police will then command 

that unit while the unit is in his or her town. They’ll deal with the 

problem, then they’ll move to the next community like a strike 

force, a ready to go strike force that can go from community to community, has jurisdiction. 

Cost-wise, you pay for your officer while your officer is assigned 

to another community. When those other officers come back to your 

community, their chiefs of police or their communities pay for them 

so you incur no cost. You have a professional strike force of gang 

officers that’s mobile and from hour to hour can move from community to community, and that’s what we envision it to be. We initially started out working the festivals. There are a number of festivals in McHenry County that attract a number of people who 

both live in the area as well as out of the area that are involved 

in gangs. Over this past week end, I think our gang task force 

made contact with 72 known gang members from throughout the 

area. We made a number of arrests. We tossed a number of these 

people away out of the festivals. Told them if they were representing or dressing a certain way, they couldn’t be there, and 

they left and it turned out very positively. 

Mr. MANZULLO. How do you enforce that? If somebody is wearing——

Mr. NYGREN. We suggest it wouldn’t be in their best interest to 

represent and they leave on their own. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Just sort of a subtle thing such as we will be 

watching you for the rest of the time you’re here, you’d better 

leave? 

Mr. NYGREN. Exactly. If you’re going to represent—it’s not just 

that it’s an irritant to us, but it’s a danger to them. When you represent, you can wind up being shot by somebody. 

44

Mr. MANZULLO. So there’s really a tremendous fear on the part 

of gang members when they know they’re not welcome. 

Mr. NYGREN. Exactly. 

Mr. MANZULLO. And you’re not making an arrest and they’re 

really technically not breaking the law. You just know who they 

are and you tell them to get. 

Mr. NYGREN. Exactly. 

Mr. MANZULLO. And it works. 

Mr. NYGREN. It’s effective. 

Mr. MANZULLO. That’s great until somebody decides there’s 

something unconstitutional about it. 

Gary, would you tie into that also? 

Mr. PACK. We did tie in that the wearing of the colors and the 

symbols is what is a major problem here in our county because a 

lot of these—most of them are kids. They’re not organized yet, but 

they’re still here and they’re kids and they’re transplants from 

other areas and they come here and they have their colors and it’s 

a turf war and they want to stake out their little turf and this is 

what causes the fights, the gang fights, sometimes drive by shootings. So I think it’s very imperative that they know that they’re not 

welcome here. But it is the wearing of these colors and the symbols 

which causes the problems. Sometimes they don’t even know 

they’re wearing the symbols or the colors and it does get them in 

trouble and it gets them in a fight and that’s why we emphasize 

the education part of the gang symbolism. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Well, Pam Maakestad said when she testified 

earlier today that her son started wearing—her son’s favorite color 

always was blue and he had suggested for Christmas gifts that his 

family give him clothing with blue and black, having no indication 

that this, in fact, these were gang colors and this had gone on for 

a considerable period of time and then he started wearing an athletics hat with the big A up there. Didn’t wear a Cubs hat, didn’t 

wear a White Sox hat. Just happened to be the A hat and she said 

that this went on for a prolonged period of time with no indication 

to the parent that this was, in fact, a symbol of the gangs. What 

colors do the gangs wear here, Gary? We read about this here in 

our——

Mr. PACK. Depends on your gang. I mean there are all different 

colors. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Can you get specific? Or would that be beneficial 

not to get specific? 

Mr. PACK. No. I think the kids—we see the blue and the black. 

We’ll see red and black. Those are probably the two most prevalent 

colors that we see in the area. Blue and black. Red and black. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Why does a kid who comes from a household 

where there’s no indication of any problem get involved with 

gangs? Anybody? I know if we knew the answer to that, we could 

solve this. 

Mr. NYGREN. Gangs represent a family for a lot of people who 

don’t have families. There’s a security factor. There’s recognition. 

That’s why the colors are so important. When we went to high 

school, you would strive to get a letter for an athletic team or band 

or whatever it was and you were very proud of wearing those 

school colors. Well, it’s no different with a gang member. They have 

45

the same emotional pride that we had when we were that age, but 

if you’re not very successful academically or at school or in your 

church or in your community or athletically, you want to still be 

recognized and part of something, so the gangs fill the void for a 

lot of people who don’t have those successes. 

Mr. MANZULLO. I don’t want this hearing to end without the people of McHenry County having some semblance of hope. I mean 

we’ve heard a lot of bad news this afternoon. Where is McHenry 

County with relation to other counties this size? Is there more drug 

presence here? More gang presence here than in other counties? 

Not that that makes it any better or any worse, but I want us as 

a result hopefully or partially a result of these hearings to be able 

to give the folks of this county some hope and to point us in a direction where we can try to start or continue the process of coordinating whatever services are available. 

Mr. PACK. McHenry County is by far the safest county around 

to live in and even violent crimes, we have very little violent crime 

and the drugs, when you look at the drugs that are found in other 

counties or what’s being used to deliver, I mean to the scale, it’s 

a much lower scale in McHenry County. We have a very large 

county population-wise. A lot of the to do was not even law enforcement but all the people, the social services that really care and 

there are a lot of programs that are in there and they do care and 

they’re proactive. They’re very proactive. They’re not necessarily reactive. But we have a lot of agencies that are in there and really 

caring. 

When I said there’s a lot of hope for McHenry County because 

these programs were instituted just because we fear of the future. 

We feared that there was going to be a gang problem so all these 

organizations came to play even before there was a major gang 

problem. The gang problem in McHenry County is more of a future 

potential problem. They are here certainly. There’s something like 

400 known gang members, but is that a lot compared to Kane, 

Lake, Will, is that a lot? I think if some of those cities down there 

had our problem, they would think they didn’t have a problem. But 

as far as McHenry County standards go, just one gang member is 

a problem to us. There’s a lot of hope because we have a lot of law 

enforcement here that are taking a very serious look and prevention. 

Mr. HASTERT. Well, I just want to say Don, I certainly appreciate 

your joining me today and appreciate everybody here that’s out 

fighting this fight. You’re in the middle of it day in and day out. 

I commend you. I think there is some good news. I think part of 

this is communication. I think the type of networks that Sheriff, 

you set up and some of the programs, Mr. LeFew, that you’ve done 

certainly are helping. We work every day with the DEA and Tom 

Constantine and I have become almost pen pals. But anyway, there 

are some things we can do and certainly joining with the State’s 

attorneys and all those districts. We had the DeKalb State’s attorney and worked with the Kendall County and Kane County State’s 

attorney to do these types of things and we need to do the type of 

networks. We need to increase the communication. It’s a job that 

you just don’t take one piece of it and work on it. It’s where you 

46

have to do the whole ceramic and put every piece of mosaic in place 

in order to win the battle. We’re trying to do that. 

What we would hope to do is take this information today and at 

least help that be our parameters when we start to put together 

the re-authorization for the drug czar and all those programs that 

they work and the appropriation process that we’re beginning to go 

through, as well. 

Don, you have a question. 

Mr. MANZULLO. One question before we conclude. If a parent 

thinks that his or her child is involved in drugs or gangs, what 

number can that parent call? What can be done? Call the Sheriff’s 

Department? 

Mr. NYGREN. You can certainly do that but, you know, that may 

not happen. I’m a realist. But certainly there is a crisis line, a 1–

800 number in McHenry County that people can call. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Do you know what that is? 

Mr. NYGREN. Not right off the top of my head. The Youth Service 

Bureau works with youngsters. The Communities Against Gangs 

programs in each one of the communities in the county are certainly there to help. You could get hold of Phyllis Walters for that. 

She started all those chapters. A trusted school counselor is a good 

place to start. In fact, that’s where a lot of kids do go initially is 

they go to someone in the schools that they trust. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Are parents afraid that if they try to get help for 

their kids that there’ll be a massive arrest and the child will be 

caught up and thrown in jail if they don’t seek counseling? 

Mr. NYGREN. No. I think not any more. I mean years ago that 

was the case but no, we take a more understanding, compassionate 

approach to parents coming out and asking for help. They should 

never be arrested in those cases. They should be helped. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Thank you. 

Mr. HASTERT. We’ll leave the record open to include those numbers. 

I’ll let Don have the last word. Just want to say thank you and 

this hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 3:58 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

Æ