Tag Archives: Illinois

The early bird gets the $15 DVD player

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I’ve done two stints as The State Journal-Register’s morning-after-Thanksgiving Black Friday reporter, and they probably won’t be the last time you’ll find me shivering in front of Best Buy or Toys R Us, talking to bargain-driven shoppers Thanksgiving night.

I have to admit, though, it’s a pretty fun assignment. Photographer T.J. Salsman photographed the fun and he produced this great video. It’s one of my all-time favorites at the paper.

Early Birds / Some deal-seekers stake out stores overnight to get goods
Nov. 24, 2007

Little can come between a serious bargain hunter and the come-hither allure of a $200 desktop computer, an $800 big-screen high-definition television or a $15 DVD player – not a shower of icy snow, sub-freezing temperatures or even long lines.

Let the seduction begin.

Springfield stores were flooded as early as 4 a.m. Friday, as day-after-Thanksgiving holiday shoppers began their search for reduced-price televisions, computers, game systems and other items.

Many shoppers lined up Thursday afternoon and earlier. Some skipped Thanksgiving dinner with family for the chance to land $2 DVD movies and board games for Christmas gifts.

Those waiting in line chatted with each other, made new friends, plotted their in-store strategies, played board games, ordered pizza, drank coffee, talked on their cell phones and shivered in the chilly November darkness.

Like most years, near chaos was narrowly averted after Johnny-come-lately “line jumpers” did what they do best – cut in line.

Some shoppers walked out of the stores victorious and satisfied with their efforts. Others left disappointed and empty-handed.

These are their Black Friday stories.

Best Buy

Blue and gray camping tents. The hum of propane heaters and the scent of toasted marshmallows. People nestled inside sleeping bags and pizza deliverymen pulling up with hot pies.

Must be a scene from the local campground, right?

Wrong. It was the scene outside Best Buy, 3193 S. Veterans Parkway, on Thursday night.

“That’s what I’m talking about right there, boys,” proclaimed Greg Farley about 9:30 p.m., as a family member fired up a second heater that had run out of propane earlier.

Farley, his father, James Farley, and six other family members huddled together outside the Best Buy entrance.

They arrived at midnight Wednesday and spent all Thanksgiving Day outside the closed store, waiting for their chance to buy advertised $229 laptop computers for youngsters in the family.

“We had a lot of people pull up and ask what time they open,” James Farley said. “We do this every year. We’ve been first in line the last two years.”

Under a green shelter canopy behind them was a Springfield foursome – Rhonda Royer, Dan Means, Jeff Smith and Deanna Burgess.

They arrived at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, pleased with their No. 2 spot in line, and set up shop: chairs, sleeping bags, blankets, a kerosene heater, a folding table full of snacks and warm drinks and games to pass the time. They erected the tent when it began snowing.

“When I got home from work yesterday … I knew it was going to be 22 degrees tonight. I told Rhonda to bring the blankets, and I told Jeff to bring the tent,” Means said. “Rhonda’s mom brought turkey dinner for us.”

They were in search of Christmas gifts for their children and other items, including computers, a small television, a “Hannah Montana” DVD game, cameras and a game chair.

Chad Walton, a trucking company owner from Springfield, got in line about 6:30 p.m. Thursday and estimated he was roughly the 70th person in line. It was his fifth or sixth year lining up for Black Friday specials.

“I come here every year. It’s the only day I request off,” he said.

Walton was in search of a global-positioning system advertised for $119, a $200 desktop computer and a camera.

“Everybody’s pretty cool out here. If you’ve got to go to the bathroom, they’ll hold your place in line for you. The veterans, like me, watch out for people. The camaraderie’s good. It’s fun,” he said.

“People will drive by all night and laugh and point at you, but when you’re walking out with your stuff, and they’re just pulling up …”

He walked away with everything he wanted except for the computer.

Another group also missed out on the bargain-basement computer. Carmen Jones and several friends drove all the way from Smithville, about 80 miles northwest of Springfield, and got in line Thursday afternoon, confident they would be able to get one of the computers for her family.

However, she said, several “line jumpers” – the bane of hard-core Black Friday shoppers – sneaked in line in front of them, and the computer vouchers were gone by the time Best Buy employees got to Jones’ group.

“I can cry you a river because we don’t even have a computer at home. This was going to be our first computer,” she said.

Gamestop

Nothing was going to stand between three Rochester teenagers and a Wii game system.

Elliot Batten, 17, Justin Emmons, 17, and Matt Emmons, 19, for weeks have been calling stores all over the Springfield area – even stores in Chicago – in a quest to track down one of the elusive game systems.

Every phone call resulted in disappointment. None of the stores had the systems. Then they learned Gamestop, 2845 S. Veterans Parkway, expected to have nine Wii systems on Friday.

Eureka.

So the trio set up camp outside the store at 9:50 p.m. Thursday, armed with multiple layers of clothing, hats, a blanket and the determination to power through sub-freezing overnight temperatures. They not only were first in line, they were the line until Friday morning.

“We might be a little extreme, but we’re not taking any chances,” Matt Emmons said.

“Our parents were like, ‘You guys are crazy. Just keep warm,’” said Batten, who was wearing four shirts and a coat. “It’s going to go so fast. This is all I want for Christmas.”

The three teens didn’t think they would have any trouble passing the time; among them they had a laptop computer, cell phones and an iPod. They laughed at the suggestion Thursday night that they might change their minds when temperatures dipped to the forecast low of 22 degrees.

“It ain’t gonna happen. We’re teenagers,” Batten said.

Sure enough, they were still waiting outside the store at 6 a.m. Friday, and their spirits were still high. That’s what the lure of a Wii will do to a teenager. Four other people were in line behind them.

“It was really cold, but other than that it was fine,” Batten said. “We sat in the van for about an hour to warm up. There was nobody else out here, but I was holding onto the door handle ready to jump out. We didn’t feel so bad when other people got here.”

Circuit City

“It’s not so much the heat that gets you, it’s the humidity,” joked Andy Polley, as he and a group of nine others huddled in a circle at the entrance to Circuit City, 3051 Wabash Ave., Thursday night.

The large, spirited group earlier had been several smaller groups of people, but once the temperatures plummeted and the snow began falling, they decided to “circle the wagons” in the interest of keeping warm. Four women, also part of the group, huddled in a red tent next to them.

They all arrived about 4:30 p.m. Thursday and were in the market for computers, televisions and other electronics.

“This is my third year in a row. This is my first year buying something, though,” one of the men said.

Polley, 25, of Springfield said the decision to go to Circuit City was “pretty spur of the moment.”

“I just grabbed every blanket and hat. I just called up my friends (Thursday) and said let’s do this,” he said. His hat of choice was a large furred number with earflaps, fit for the tundra or the North Pole.

As cold as it was, the jokes and zingers were in ample supply.

“Some of these guys are just here for comic relief,” Polley said, as some of the group laughed about the challenge of keeping warm.

They ordered pizza, shared warm, foil-wrapped hot dogs, cookies and hot drinks, and spent a lot of time “just talking” to pass the hours.

“Three waitresses from Denny’s came by earlier and brought 12 cups of coffee and coupons for 20 percent off breakfast,” Polley said. “How’s that for marketing?”

Toys R Us

Rachel Bowman wanted to take advantage of the early Friday morning door-buster sales at Toys R Us, 2701 S. Veterans Parkway, but she didn’t want to stand outside in the cold darkness alone.

So she agreed to pay her sister $30 to stand outside with her, starting at 10 p.m. Thursday.

“I planned on coming out here at 1 a.m., but the more I sat at home, the more I got nervous that other people were thinking the same thing, so I came out,” she said.

Bowman, who has children ages 7 and 3, said she wanted to buy two MP3 players, a karaoke machine and maybe some other items.

“My first Black Friday time was last year. I went to Target, and that was like crazy, too. I went there at three or four in the morning, so by the time I got there, the line was all the way around the building. People were passing TVs over each other’s heads,” she said.

Shelly and Scott Huckabay have done the Black Friday thing before. Difference is, it was in California, where there’s no such thing as a wind chill.

“It’s so cold,” Shelly Huckabay said as the Jacksonville couple shivered under blankets about 11 p.m. Thursday just outside the Toys R Us entrance. An icy wind whipped around the northeast corner of neighboring Babies R Us and blasted the couple as well as Bowman and her sister.

The Huckabays were waiting in line for Christmas gifts for their 6- and 7-year-old children, including 60-percent-off Microsoft Zune MP3/video players and other items.

Scott Huckabay said they were doing their best to fend off the cold.

“We layered up. We put on layers of clothes. We have blankets, coffee and soda. Yeah, I have my ice-cold drinks,” he joked. “Next year, I’m bringing a tent and a heater.”

He and Bowman agreed there is a great deal of strategy involved in Black Friday shopping – deciding when to go, how to prepare, where to head once the store opens, how to guarantee you get everything you’re after.

“This is war games out there. This is shoppers’ war games,” he said.

Collision with train leaves teenager dead

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I don’t believe the family of this Girard teenager ever got the answers they were searching for about how this crash happened. The mother wore her son’s class ring on her finger as she took me and photographer Shannon Kirshner to the crash site in October 2007. I’ll never know how she managed to keep herself together.

Mourning ‘Munchy’ / Girard teen died when car he was driving was struck by train
Oct. 29, 2007

GIRARD – To his friends, Matt Munchalfen was “Munchy,” a shy, all-around good guy who had a secret crush on a popular schoolmate. To his neighbors, he was the dependable young man who showed up to cut their grass, rake their leaves and put up riprap at their lakeside homes.

His younger brother and sister could count on Matt for rides and advice. Matt’s father expected his son to take over the family electrical business. He already could fully wire a garage.

And Matt was his mother’s first-born child. Despite being a busy 19-year-old, he often stopped by her bedroom to chat whenever he returned home from a night out with his friends.

“I didn’t know how many people Matt touched, how many people he knew,” Joanne Munchalfen said last week. “This is something that hits close to home for all parents.”

Matt, a senior at Girard High School, died Oct. 13 when an Amtrak train struck his sport utility vehicle as he crossed a track on Greenridge Road two miles from his home.

There is no clear-cut answer for why the accident happened. Matt was killing time that morning. He was to meet his dad at the shop, and they were to work on a deck project. His father was running late, and it was raining. Joanne Munchalfen believes he was going to a popular four-wheeling spot to see if any of his friends were out riding.

He headed west on Greenridge Road, a crossing with only a yield sign that last week was partially obscured by overgrown tree limbs.

Several factors make the crossing unique. The railroad track runs parallel to Illinois 4. When heading west on Greenridge, drivers must stop just on the other side of the track for a stop sign at the highway.

To the north, the track is a double track. Once it makes a slight curve about a half a mile north of the crossing, it narrows to one track. A large steel maintenance or utility box for the railroad sits north of the crossing on the east side of the rails and partially obscures the vision of drivers heading west on Greenridge.

There are no flashing lights or crossing arms at the intersection.

Joanne Munchalfen said she was told there was a vehicle sitting on the other side of the tracks at the stop sign for the highway and that a second train was sitting where the double track becomes a single track.

She believes all those factors may have distracted her son and, combined with the lack of train warnings, contributed to him driving onto the track in front of the train.

Illinois State Police handled the crash investigation. A report does not note a vehicle sitting at the stop sign or workers on the track.

The southbound Amtrak, consisting of an engine and four passenger cars, was going about 78 mph. The conductor told police he blew the train’s horn upon approaching the crossing but the driver of the white Ford Explorer did not slow down prior to crossing the track.

The train dragged the SUV 2,100 feet before it could stop.

Matt’s cell phone was found at the accident site, and Joanne Munchalfen said she and her husband checked the call history but found no evidence that Matt was on the phone at the time of the crash.

“He was always my cautious child. He never took risks. He was just a good kid,” Joanne Munchalfen said. “They said he was looking south at the time. I’m hoping that’s the case, that he didn’t know what hit him.”

Joanne Munchalfen, who wears Matt’s class ring on her finger, is committed to getting out the word that drivers, especially teenagers, need to be more cautious around railroad crossings. She also hopes to get the attention of someone who can put up a more effective crossing signal at the Green Ridge intersection.

She also is concerned about Matt’s friends, who are going to the accident site to leave memorials for Matt.

“I just don’t want to see this happen to anybody else,” she said. “I was always worried about deer. I never in a million years thought about a rural railroad.”

Capt. Tim Reents, commander of the District 18 state police in Litchfield, said police try to educate young drivers about the dangers of railroad crossings.

“What I tell people about railroad crossings is even if they have warning lights or even if they have the cross arms that come down, don’t always trust those because they are mechanical devices. They can fail,” he said. “I would treat every train crossing as if there is a train coming. Slow down, turn the radio down, maybe roll the window down, look both ways, listen and just be very, very cautious.”

He said drivers also should be particularly careful at crossings where the railroad track parallels a highway, such as the crossing on Greenridge Road.

“A lot of times what will happen is that even though the track may parallel evenly with the road, those crossings will angle a little and you almost have to look back over your shoulder to see if anything is coming,” Reents said.

Reents said the state police review all collisions between vehicles and trains, and if they believe there is an issue, they alert the Illinois Department of Transportation.

“Our officers are pretty good when they go out and handle a crash, especially a fatal or a serious accident, if they start going to same place over and over again, they’re pretty good about bringing things to our attention,” he said.

“I think everyone would like to have something to put their finger on and say, ‘That’s why it happened,’ and a lot of times you can’t put your fingers on those things,” he said. “You can know the dynamics – how fast it was going, how far it traveled, the point of impact. You can do all those scientific things, but to know what was going on in people’s minds is difficult.”

Meanwhile, Joanne Munchalfen continues her search for answers and tells others to hug their kids often.

“It’s only been a week, and I think the thing my husband and I have noticed is how adult he really was. He would just take over things and do them,” she said, crying. “I think he was happy. He just had so many things going for him, and I guess that’s why it’s so unreal.”

Homeless man beaten to death outside library

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Lincoln Library, the public library in Springfield, became an unauthorized homeless shelter of sorts the summer of 2007. For some reason, numerous homeless people began spending their days and nights hanging around and sleeping on the sidewalks outside the library instead of at the shelters downtown.

Things came to a head one night in July, when one homeless man beat and stomped to death another homeless man outside the library. I learned that the victim, Timothy Ryan, hadn’t always been homeless and that he, in fact, had family here in the city.

I attended Tim’s funeral and remember looking at all the photographs of him as a child and a teenager, wondering how he got into the situation he was in and thinking about how difficult it must be for a parent to watch it happen.

Homeless man beaten at library / On life support; suspect in custody
July 28, 2007

A 45-year-old homeless man on Friday remained hospitalized in critical condition after having his head stomped on, allegedly by another homeless man, outside Lincoln Library Thursday night.

The victim was on life support at St. John’s Hospital, authorities said.

Robert B. Jones, 45, was arrested a short time after the attack.

He was charged with aggravated battery and is being held in the Sangamon County Jail on $200,000 bond.

The attack happened about 8:40 p.m. Thursday on the north side of the library, 326 S. Seventh St. Police have not said if they know what prompted the attack.

For more than a year, the library has been the center of a communitywide debate about how the city deals with its homeless population. A dozen or more homeless men and women have congregated on the property day and night, setting up sleeping areas on the plaza and keeping mounds of tarpaulin-wrapped belongings with them.

Police have received complaints about homeless people pestering passers-by, urinating on the outside of the building, fighting with each other and using drugs or alcohol.

The city this summer began paying for a storage unit elsewhere for the library homeless to keep their belongings during the day.

In addition, city workers began documenting all the homeless people at the library in order to try to help them with such needs as jobs, housing and transportation to other cities.

Sandy Robinson, the city’s director of community relations, who has been involved with the assistance effort, called Thursday’s attack disappointing.

“It’s sad and tragic, really, that we seem to be making progress with these issues on a number of fronts and seem to have outside influences that continue to throw up additional hurdles,” he said.

“This is what appears to be an incident that could have occurred virtually anywhere in the city – two individuals get into an altercation and something tragic happens. I don’t think it has anything to do with them being homeless, but it obviously is going to take on that perspective.”

Robinson said he is familiar with both men, but more so with Jones, who had been scheduled to meet Friday with city employees to talk about housing. Jones was a regular user of the storage unit – he was there as recently as 4:30 p.m. Thursday – and has had some “pretty significant interaction” with city employees.

Jones, who has a regular income, had stayed at one of the local shelters for a couple of weeks within the last month, but then returned to the street, Robinson said.

He said Jones was soft-spoken and withdrawn, and case managers who had talked to him thought the attack seemed out of character.

However, arrest records tell a different story.

Jones was arrested about 9:30 p.m. June 21 at Ninth and Carpenter streets, where he allegedly had attacked a 50-year-old stranger. A witness flagged down a patrol officer, who reported he had seen Jones kicking the man multiple times in the head and body.

When the officer ordered Jones to the ground so he could be arrested, Jones allegedly tucked his arms under his body so he couldn’t be handcuffed. He cooperated after the officer threatened to use pepper spray on him.

The victim said he had never seen or talked to Jones before.

Jones also was arrested May 18, after he and his girlfriend were caught trespassing at St. John’s Hospital. According to police, a security guard at the hospital about 9 a.m. told Jones and Dorothy J. Valentine, 46, who also is homeless, that they had to leave or be arrested for trespassing.

Six hours later, the guard found them having sex in a fifth-floor restroom and had them arrested.

Ward 5 Ald. Sam Cahnman, whose area includes the library, said that while he agrees Thursday night’s incident could happen anywhere, it’s more likely to happen where people congregate, which underscores the need to find a solution to the homeless problem at the library.

Cahnman is drafting an ordinance that would allow a homeless fund check-off on all City Water, Light and Power bills. Customers could choose to have their bills rounded up to the next dollar, and the difference would be used to help the homeless.

“I think there’s been a lot of improvement recently with the introduction of the (storage unit),” Cahnman said. “It seems like there are a lot fewer people out on the north end of the library than there used to be.”

Another ordinance awaiting city council approval would authorize the library to spend $18,050 on 16 security cameras to be installed inside and outside the building, including in the parking garage. Guards would monitor the cameras.

“It didn’t really have anything to do with the homeless, it’s just a security thing,” said Ernie Slottag, spokesman for the mayor’s office. “We have them on the other buildings already, and since the library is part of the municipal complex, it’s only fitting that they have them too.”

Robinson said he believes the attack will prompt some community discussion.

“I’m just hoping that, like many tragedies, that something positive can come from it,” he said.
Murder victim recalled fondly / Hadn’t always been homeless
July 31, 2007

It takes a special person to play Santa Claus effectively, but Timothy Ryan had what it takes.

He was cheery and compassionate – a real people person, said those who knew and loved him, including his father.

“I worked for the state, and one Christmas, he came walking past my office into the back area of the building where the state had a print shop, and he walked around and gave candy canes to all my employees, calling them by name,” an emotional Don Ryan recalled Monday.

“When he walked out of the building, he said, ‘Merry Christmas to all, and Merry Christmas to you, too, Don.’ It was three days before I realized it was him.”

Those are the type of memories that are helping Timothy Ryan’s family and friends cope with his murder.

Ryan, 45, died Friday after being beaten outside the north side of Lincoln Library the evening before. The attacker stomped on Ryan’s head for reasons unknown, police said. A homeless man, Robert B. Jones, is being held in the attack.

Ryan, who also was homeless, at one time worked in mail and messenger service for the Illinois Department of Central Management Services and in the duplicating area for the state Department of Professional Regulation.

His father said his son’s death is difficult to talk about and declined to discuss the circumstances of Ryan’s homelessness.

“This is a celebration of life, and we want to talk about the good aspects. That’s the way I want to remember him,” Don Ryan said. “I hope something good comes of it with the library situation. It’s very unfortunate, and some of those people are wonderful people.”

Charges against Jones, 45, were upgraded to first-degree murder on Monday. He made his first appearance in court and did not respond to any questions from Associate Circuit Judge Robert Hall, instead standing still with his head cocked to the right.

First assistant state’s attorney Steve Weinhoeft cited Jones’ 29 prior arrests and eight convictions dating back to 1980 in asking that his bond be increased to $500,000 from $200,000. Hall agreed.

Jones had been charged with aggravated battery, but Weinhoeft asked the court to dismiss that charge in favor of three counts of first-degree murder.

Jones’ last conviction was for misdemeanor battery earlier this year.

Hall appointed the Sangamon County public defender’s office to represent Jones. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Aug. 16.

The attack on Ryan happened about 8:40 p.m. Thursday. Police have not yet said what they believe prompted it.

“We’re still trying to determine the exact motive,” said Springfield police spokesman Sgt. Pat Ross.

Sangamon County Coroner Susan Boone said an autopsy showed the fatal injury was to the back of Ryan’s head behind his ear. She said he had no other injuries.

Steve Brown, spokesman for House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, on Monday said he knew Timothy Ryan in the 1990s from Play It Again Sam’s, a bar that used to be on Monroe Street near the Stratton Building. Brown said he wanted people who may have encountered Ryan to be able to put a face to his name.

“He was a funny and kind of playful guy. Like just about anybody, when he had too much to drink, he could be kind of obnoxious,” Brown said.

“I knew he had taken a turn sort of for the worst, but I don’t know that he ever was a menace to anybody or harmed anybody, and he certainly didn’t deserve the fate it is alleged he was dealt.”

‘Simpsons Movie’ passes go quickly

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You can’t live in Springfield without writing at least one Simpsons-related story. In my case, I staked out the line outside the local convention and visitors bureau in July 2007 when they handed out a limited number of passes for a special screening of the new Simpsons Movie opening that summer.

‘Simpsons Movie’ passes go quickly / Each one good for two admissions to special screening
July 24, 2007

Adam Stogdell, 19, kept an eye on the office of the Springfield Convention and Visitors Bureau all weekend, looking for signs of life.

Had he seen a line of “Simpsons” fans forming outside the front door, he was prepared to park and stake out a spot for himself in line.

By 10 p.m. Sunday, however, the anticipation had become too much. There still was no line, so Stogdell parked in front of the Seventh Street office, pulled out a chair and cooler and started a line himself.

“Honestly, there just is not much to do on a Sunday night,” said Stogdell, an engineering student home for the summer from Berea College in Kentucky.

By 8:20 a.m. Monday, a line of 90 fans eager for a pass to see a special Thursday night screening of “The Simpsons Movie” stretched down the street and around the corner.

At 8:30 a.m., officials at the convention and visitors bureau started handing out 75 passes, each good for two admissions to the screening, and 500 special-edition posters touting the film and declaring it was “filmed in Springfield, Ill.”

Fifteen minutes later, the passes were all gone, much to the disappointment of fans 76 and beyond.

“It’s just another in a string of disappointments,” said Eve Fischberg, 49, of Loami, when she learned she and her 15-year-old son, Aaron Staley, had missed the movie pass cut-off by just a few people. Fischberg was referring to Springfield’s disappointing loss of hosting rights for “The Simpsons Movie” premiere.

Springfield, Vt., beat out Springfield, Ill., and 12 other Springfields around the country in an online popularity contest to host the premiere, which was held Saturday.

“We’re the obvious choice. Everyone knows it’s us,” said Staley, a student at New Berlin High School. “We’ll let the baby have its bottle.”

Fischberg said she thinks “The Simpsons” TV series is one of the best-written shows on television.

“At its heart, there’s a real warmth and a decency about it. It’s really wonderful,” she said.

The two, who got in line at 8:10 a.m. Monday, will see the movie later.

Tim Farley, director of the Springfield Convention and Visitors Bureau, said ticket distribution went smoothly, though employees felt a little bad for the woman who was 76th in line.

“That’s the one that was really sad,” he said. “But I think the posters really softened it. They got second place, just like the city did (in the premiere contest).”

By 3 p.m. Monday, 400 of the posters had been snapped up by people who trickled in and out all day.

The visitors bureau received a total of 150 passes. Of those, 75 were given to people who were featured in or worked on the contest video, as well as to some bureau staff members who worked on the project. The other half were distributed to the public.

Matthew Mau, 23, of Chatham got in line at 11:30 p.m. Sunday for a shot at a movie pass and poster. He said he enjoyed being in line – he was right behind Stodgell – even if it was tough to stay perky.

“I actually fell asleep a few times, but they woke me up. It’s been fun,” he said. “I’ve just been watching ‘The Simpsons’ for a long time, and I enjoy it. The movie has been 16, 17 years in the making, and it should be good.”

Mystery snake invades Lake Springfield

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The things I learned about snakes living on the shores of Lake Springfield while reporting on this story make me want to, well, stay away from Lake Springfield.

This was a fun distraction from crime reporting. They never did find the monster snake.

Snake in the lake / Unusual sighting intrigues officials, experts
June 25, 2007

Rumor has it, there’s sssomething suspicious ssswimming in Lake Ssspringfield.

But experts don’t believe there’s any reason to be alarmed.

In April, a woman who lives near Lake Springfield snapped a very Loch Ness-quality photo of what appears to be a large, yellow-colored snake in the water near the rocky shoreline.

The photo shows the snake’s head sticking out of the water and its body beneath.

Rumors have been swirling about the photo and exactly what kind of serpent is pictured. Some have speculated it is a python, but most seem to believe it is some kind of water snake that lives in the lake.

No one else has seen the snake, or at least had the presence of mind to take a photo if they did. As a result, City Water, Light and Power officials have no way of determining if the snake is something one would expect to find in Lake Springfield, or if it is something that doesn’t belong there.

Even snake experts are puzzled, mainly because there are only two photographs and the quality of them is too poor to make a positive identification.

“It’s tough. I really can’t tell what it is,” said Chris Phillips, a snake expert with the Illinois Natural History Survey in Champaign. Several people have e-mailed the photos to him, and officials at the Illinois Department of Natural Resources and the Illinois Department of Transportation have asked him for his opinion on the Lake Springfield serpent.

Phillips ruled out the common water snake that is abundant in the lake. Lake Springfield is home to numerous northern water snakes, which have light gray or tan backs, brown crossbands and light yellow bellies. They commonly are seen basking on rocks or foraging in the water.

CWLP officials on Friday said they think it might be a yellowbelly or diamondback water snake.

But Phillips said a yellowbelly water snake is unlikely because that’s a southern snake that doesn’t come north except along the Mississippi River.

A diamondback snake still is a possibility, but no one can see the snake’s dorsal pattern in the photographs to confirm it.

There is one other possibility that hasn’t been ruled out – that someone released an exotic snake into Lake Springfield.

“When I first thought it might be a water snake, then people started saying python,” Phillips said. “I wasn’t even thinking of released pets until someone brought up that possibility. The photos I saw were so blurry, it wasn’t possible to make any kind of a call, even between something like one of our native water snakes and a python.”

CWLP workers have been keeping their eyes peeled for the elusive snake.

“We aren’t concerned, but we just want to get it out of there” if it doesn’t belong in the lake, said CWLP spokesman Ray Serati.

Steve Frank, one of the city’s lake managers, said officials have not activated a full-blown search for the reptile because no one else has seen it or reported anything odd. City employees who work at the lake have been asked to document any unusual snakes.

“If it’s a large snake that we can find, we’d definitely like to get it out of there if possible. If it’s one of the regular water snakes that hang around out there, those can be difficult to find,” he said.

“There’s been no positive ID on this, so we’re just looking. We take all our calls seriously, but we don’t have a lot to go on out there.”

Michelle Bodamer Nicol, another CWLP lake manager, said the snakes that commonly live in Lake Springfield are not venomous and are nothing to be scared of.

If anyone spots a large snake that looks like the one in the photographs, they are urged to take a clear photo and send it to CWLP. Having something in the photo to determine scale would be helpful as well, officials said.

Photos can be e-mailed to michelle.nicol@cwlp.com.

Broken life: Part 2

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minnieandjerry2

Part 1 of the “Victim of circumstance” series was about Jerry’s life now, what unfolded the night of the crash and Derek Brown’s history as a reckless driver and his brushes with the law.

Part 2 examined the relationship between Jerry and his fiancee and caretaker, Minnie Blue Bond, as well as the legal battle, Jerry’s injuries and his prospects for the future.

Spinal cord injury leaves Gaston with few options
 Aug. 28, 2006

Snap a pencil in half, and you’re left with two pieces of wood with a lead core running through the center. Firmly bind the two pieces back together, and there’s a good chance you can continue using the pencil with no trouble.

Now imagine your spinal column with the spinal cord running through the center – something like a pencil with a piece of licorice inside.

Had Jerry Gaston’s vertebrae simply fractured as a result of the crash in May 2002, he might have walked away. But in his case, three bones in his neck broke and dislocated from each other, stretching and pulling and putting pressure on his spinal cord.

Doctors rushed to stabilize the injury when Gaston got to the hospital. They used a device that applied traction and allowed them to realign the bone to prevent further damage to the cord. His surgeon, Dr. Stephen Pineda, then performed surgery to repair and stabilize the fracture with a series of plates, screws and rods.

Despite doctors’ efforts, the damage was permanent and irreversible. Gaston lost function of everything the spinal cord controls from his neck on down, including arm and leg movement, use of his chest and abdominal muscles, and control over his bowel, bladder and sexual functions.

If the injury had been higher, as in the case of deceased actor Christopher Reeve, Gaston also would not have been able to move his head and neck and would have been unable to breathe without a ventilator.

“It’s devastating. The spinal cord will not regenerate. It’s not like bone, which will regenerate,” Pineda said. “When you have a dislocated neck, we know that the spinal cord is undergoing continuous damage.”

Gaston was hospitalized for two months as he tried to recover from the injury and subsequent complications, such as persistent pneumonia. He underwent two weeks of physical therapy and rehabilitation at the hospital, then went home.

Initially, he could only shrug his shoulders. In September 2002, he regained some use of his lower extremities, so he returned to the hospital the following February for additional rehabilitation. He also regained some use of his upper extremities. He was sent home again later that month but continued therapy as an outpatient.

He has enough use of his right arm that he can operate his electric wheelchair, and he can sometimes feed himself. He is able to stand for a second or two with support, but that’s it.

“He has some nerves that are working, and that’s wonderful,” Pineda said. “But if there’s no functional outcome from it … scientifically, it gives a sense of hope, but what can you do with it?”

Gaston will require round-the-clock help for the rest of his life. It is unknown how much it will cost in the course of his lifetime for his family to care for him, keep him comfortable and stave off complications from the injury. Estimates by a rehabilitation consultant range between $4.7 million and $10.3 million.

That includes the costs of doctors’ visits and evaluations, visiting nurses, someone to make house repairs and care for the lawn, a van and van maintenance, home renovations, wheelchairs, wheelchair batteries, bedside toilets, catheters, gloves, tissues, cotton swabs, nebulizers to help him breathe, medicine for everything from pain and anxiety to allergies and indigestion, and dozens of other items for his physical, psychological, social and safety needs.

His medical expenses amounted to $414,287 from the time of the crash up to when a civil lawsuit he filed against the offending driver, the city of Springfield and two police officers went to trial.

Pineda said patients like Gaston often go through a variety of phases after they become paralyzed, from the “what do I do now?” phase to the “why me” and the “what if” phases.

“He was depressed. Anybody would be depressed. It’s quite a change,” he said. “Everything is different. Going to the bathroom – you can’t do it without getting somebody to help you. Making a phone call – you’ve got to get somebody to dial the phone, put it to your ear and when you’re done, hang it up for you.

“All the things that were simple before now are becoming an obstacle.”

Gaston’s recovery prospects are few. Advances in medical and computer technology, such as vans that can be driven by voice commands or spinal cord bypasses, could improve his life, but whether he’ll be able to take advantage of them remains to be seen.

He could be too old by the time they become available on the market.

“Right now, for a guy in his late 40s, the future is very limited, other than being an experimental person for the next generation to come,” Pineda said.

Gaston’s injury
Aug. 28, 2006

Spinal cord injuries to the cervical nerves most often result in quadriplegia, paralysis from the neck down. Damage to the thoracic nerves and below, often result in paraplegia, meaning hand control is not affected. In Jerry Gaston’s case, spinal injury occurred in the cervical region, around vertebrae C2, C3 and C4, causing him initially to lose function of his arms, legs, chest and abdominal muscles. He has regained a limited amount of movement in his extremities.

  • Skull
  • Spinal cord
  • Vertebral body
  • Intervertebral disc
  • Dura (thecal sac)
  • Spinous process
  • Conus medullaris
  • Cauda equina
  • Cervical nerves
  • Head and neck
  • Diaphram
  • Deltoids, biceps
  • Wrist extenders
  • Triceps
  • Hand
  • Thoracic nerves
  • Chest muscles
  • Abdominal muscles
  • Lumbar nerves
  • Leg muscles
  • Sacral nerves
  • Bowel and bladder
  • Sexual function

Gaston suffers defeat even with $24.5 million verdict
Aug. 28, 2006

A Sangamon County jury in March agreed that Jerry Gaston, an innocent victim of a car crash, deserved compensation for his suffering and money to pay his medical bills.

Consequently, a lawsuit filed by Gaston against Derek Brown and two Springfield police officers who had been following Brown’s car the night of the crash came down to this:

The jury awarded Gaston $24.5 million – the largest verdict in Sangamon County Circuit Court history and enough money to take care of him and his family for the rest of his life.

But in a heart-wrenching twist for Gaston and his fiancee, Minnie Blue-Bond, the jury ruled that Brown alone was responsible for the crash and that only he was liable to pay Gaston the $24.5 million.

Brown had no driver’s license or auto insurance when the accident took place in 2002. He sits in jail, with no income and no assets and – if his driving and criminal records are any indication – few prospects of either in the future.

The city and the two officers were cleared of any liability.

Gaston and Blue-Bond sat in stunned disbelief after the verdict was read.

“I was shocked. I was crushed. I didn’t have any hope left, and I still don’t have any hope left,” Blue-Bond said.

They have never seen a dime of the award. Neither have Orrin Holman and Casey Joy, other crash victims who also were awarded compensation in the suit – $75,000 for Holman and $6,500 for Joy.

Trial arguments and the resulting verdict came down to one primary issue: Were the two Springfield police officers, Chris Stout and April Smiddy, pursuing Brown in violation of police department rules, and did they thereby cause the crash?

Had the jury found they violated the rules, city taxpayers could have been on the hook for millions of dollars.

According to the department’s general orders on vehicle pursuits, officers can initiate pursuits only when they think someone in the fleeing vehicle was involved in a forcible felony.

“Pursuits for traffic offenses, property crimes, whether felony or misdemeanor, or when the suspect flees for unknown reasons are prohibited,” the orders state. “In choosing whether to initiate a pursuit, or to allow its continuation, officers will consider the degree of risk to which the officer exposes himself and others in so doing.”

The officers said in depositions that they had no reason to believe Brown had committed any crime other than running a red light at 15th Street and South Grand Avenue.

Another point of contention was whether and when the officers activated their lights and sirens.

Ultimately, the jury determined that Brown, not the officers, was responsible for his actions and the resulting crash.

The city paid $255,000 to an outside law firm, Brown, Hay and Stephens, to represent it and the officers in the suit. Thomas Schanzle-Haskins of Brown, Hay and Stephens said after the verdict that, while Gaston’s injuries are a tragedy, they were not caused by the officers.

“These are two very fine Springfield Police Department officers who were doing a good job in what they were doing the night of the accident,” he said. “I’m happy to see them vindicated, and I believe the jury’s verdict put 100 percent of the blame where it belonged.”

Bruce Beeman, attorney for Gaston, Holman and Joy, on May 30 filed a notice to appeal the civil case. Oral arguments could take place as early as December.

While the money from the verdict would be a big help to those who were injured, Holman said, the case isn’t about money.

“The moral of that whole story is the police should have let Derek Brown go instead of endangering people,” he said. “Every time they’re on the east side and they see (Gaston), they got to live with that.”

The trial was the first time Casey Joy and Michael Perkins – both of whom also were injured in the crash and sued – had ever seen Gaston. They were shocked by his condition.

“I got really emotional when I saw him,” Perkins said, recalling how Gaston and Blue-Bond sat through every day of the trial and how she tended to his every need in the courtroom.

The proceedings were tough on Joy, too. Each day after court adjourned, he said, he rode the bus to his church on Jackson Street, went inside the silent building and sat alone.

“I was sad – not for me, because I’m all right. I was sad for the man in the wheelchair and to see his face when they said it was 100 percent Derek Brown’s fault,” he said. “If I didn’t get anything, I think they at least should have given that man in the wheelchair something.”

Of all the people who attended parts of the eight-day trial, the two Gaston and Blue-Bond most wanted to hear from disappointed them.

Mayor Tim Davlin cleared his entire schedule and sat in on every day of the trial to show how important the case was to the city.

“I knew in my heart that we were innocent of that, and I felt like they were suing for the wrong reasons,” Davlin said. “If you’re suing for sympathy and suing someone with the deep pockets, we just don’t have it. We do not have that kind of money.

“So I felt like sitting there, it would send a message that they’re not suing a big corporation, they’re suing me, and I take it personally. I thought it was the right thing to do to show I had interest in this case.”

Blue-Bond said the mayor did not speak to her and Gaston, other than to say good morning each day, until after the verdict was read and the high-fives among attorneys in the courtroom were over. She said the mayor reached for Gaston’s hand and said, “I’m sorry it didn’t go the way you wanted it to.”

It wasn’t the apology they’d hoped for.

“It was one of the saddest things. It was everything I could do to keep the tears back when I walked over to him after the trial was over,” Davlin said.

“I couldn’t talk to them during the trial, other than to say ‘hi’ every day. We lived together for a week and a half. You feel terrible because the guy was wronged by a thug. … Unfortunately, the city of Springfield wasn’t the responsible party.”

No one from the police department ever apologized to the couple, either.

“A verbal apology wouldn’t mean anything to me at this point,” Blue-Bond said. “I’m very bitter.”

Brown, the couple said, never uttered a word to them during either the civil trial or during his criminal trial for the crash, not even when they all found themselves riding together in an elevator at the county building.

Brown’s behavior during the trial shocked many of those who witnessed it. He’d served three years in prison for the crash and did not have an attorney represent him in the civil case. He repeatedly defied the judge’s orders to testify in the lawsuit. One such exchange went like this:

Beeman: Did you ever say in your deposition that you knew from the time that you went – the police went through the stoplight …

Brown: Why do we keep going through this, man?

Circuit Judge Patrick Kelley: Just bear with us, Mr. Brown.

Brown: I’m saying I done did three years for this thing. Ain’t nothing else to talk about.

Judge: Well, hopefully, this will put an end to it for you. Answer the question.

Brown: There is nothing to talk about, Your Honor. Nothing.

Judge: There’s a lot to talk about, Mr. Brown. Answer Mr. Beeman’s questions.

Brown: I ain’t going to answer. Then we’re just going to sit here. I got nothing but time. We can sit here.

Gaston said it doesn’t bother him anymore that Brown behaved the way he did at the trial and that he never apologized about the crash. If he had a chance, though, he’d ask Brown where he was trying to go that night.

“If he talked to me, I’d talk to him. But he doesn’t, so I’m not going to say anything,” Gaston said.

Damages awarded to …
Aug. 28, 2006

Jerry Gaston

  • $3,000,000 for pain and suffering
  • $414,287.44 for past medical

- expenses

  • $10,362,863 for present cash value of all future medical expenses
  • $10,362,863 for loss of a normal life
  • $100,000 for disfigurement resulting

- from the injury

  • $233,272 for projected lost earnings

Total: $24,473,285.44

Orrin Holman

  • $63,308.77 for pain and suffering
  • $3,816.23 for past medical expenses
  • $7,815.00 for lost earnings

Total: $74,940

Casey M. Joy

  • $2,443.78 for pain and suffering
  • $2,443.77 for disfigurement resulting

- from injury

  • $1,612.45 for past medical expenses

Total: $6,500

mini2

Daily struggle / Accident destroys more than just Gaston’s life
Aug. 28, 2006
Minnie Blue-Bond’s heart went cold when she got the phone call from doctors in Springfield.

Her fiance, Jerry Gaston, was hanging on to life by a thread after being badly injured in a car crash caused by a man fleeing from police.

Minnie was 700 miles away, visiting family in Mississippi.

“He’s stable, but it’s shaky,” she heard the doctor say. “Touch and go.”

“Do I need to fly?” she asked. He said no, that it wasn’t necessary but that she should hurry.

Minnie told Jerry’s 8-month-pregnant daughter, his brother and his mother what had happened. A caravan of family left at 11 p.m. that Sunday to get to Springfield the next day.

Jerry was in a coma when they arrived. He hadn’t shown much response to doctors and nurses caring for him. That changed when Minnie walked into the room.

“I called his name, and he did open his eyes. The doctors were freaking out,” she recalled. “Jerry just looked at me. He couldn’t do anything else.

“And when his mom walked up to the bed and she touched his forehead and called his name, he opened his eyes again. So the doctor knew he was actually responding to us.”

Jerry was fighting. Minnie looked at him in that hospital room, hooked up to machines and monitors. Surrounding his head was a halo, a medical device used to stabilize the neck vertebrae.

The more details she gleaned from doctors, the more she understood that Jerry was going to be a quadriplegic and that being his partner would take on a whole new meaning.

***

It’s not really surprising that Jerry opened his eyes when Minnie spoke his name. The story of their love goes all the way back to Calhoun, Miss., where they grew up.

They went to grade school together, and Minnie remembers Jerry as being a somewhat naughty kid.

“Oh, I was pretty terrible,” he admitted. “You name it, I would do it, you know?”

They lost track of each other in the 1960s, when schools in the area began integrating. Life went on, and each got married and had children. Minnie divorced twice and eventually moved to Springfield. She worked for the Illinois Department of Public Aid for 15 years. Jerry divorced and remarried.

Although she didn’t realize it right away, her cousin lived next to Jerry in Calhoun. She and Jerry rekindled their friendship as adults during one of her visits to Mississippi about 1996. They talked on the phone, and she would go to Mississippi when she had the chance. After a year of dating, Jerry made a trip to St. Louis to visit his sister.

“He came up to her house, and he called me and said, ‘I’m in St. Louis – do you want to come down and spend the day with us?’ I did, and one thing led to another,” Minnie recalled with a laugh. “He went back home, called me back and said, ‘I’m moving up there.’ He asked me if he could move, and I told him yeah.”

Jerry clearly remembers what attracted him to Minnie.

“The way she was lookin’ and the way she was talkin’,” he said with a grin.

His personality is what caused Minnie to take a second look at him.

“I watched him with his nieces and nephews, and I knew I had kids and stuff. I was already a foster parent and a day-care provider,” she said. “I was basically looking for someone that had the outgoing personality that could mix with children and the parents. And someone that I could feel safe with and have around my children.”

Their brick ranch-style house on Paul Street is bursting with children. Minnie has three adopted children, ages 13, 7 and 6; three foster children, 15, 14 and 12; and an 18-month-old boy who was born to the oldest foster child. The younger kids share a bedroom on the main floor, and the older ones sleep in the basement, where there are two bedrooms and a bathroom.

Minnie also baby-sits for family and friends, and other foster children she’s raised regularly stream in and out of the house to visit her and help take care of Jerry.

Minnie, 50, also has three adult children, all of whom live in Springfield, and Jerry has three adult children in Mississippi.

The couple talked about getting married in June 2002. Jerry never legally divorced from his second wife, who lives in Mississippi and whom he hasn’t been with in 11 years. He hired a lawyer and planned to get a quick divorce while he and Minnie were there visiting family that year. Then they would get married.

But the crash happened, and their lives screeched to a halt. He and his wife have never divorced, and he and Minnie have never married.

***

Yet Minnie remains firmly planted at Jerry’s side.

She has no legal obligation to stay. They barely scrape by financially. She must care for the seven youngsters as well as tend to Jerry. Lifting, bathing, changing, feeding, grooming, medicating – it’s an endless round-the-clock commitment that a weaker woman would have abandoned by now.

“As far as I’m concerned, we’re married, because when we moved in together we kind of took a vow that that was what we were going to do further down the road when we could,” she said. “Now, there’s no way I could marry him because I can’t financially take care of him.”

Minnie vowed early on that she would never put Jerry in a nursing home. She believes he needs his family and that she is the only one who can provide the one-on-one care he deserves. Her son, Carlos, goes to the house every day to help Minnie get Jerry up in the morning and help with some light housekeeping.

Minnie says she couldn’t do it without Carlos’ help.

“I take care of him because I want to, not because I have to,” Minnie said. “I don’t want to see him go to a nursing home because I’ve worked in nursing homes, and I know what they’re like.”

She has her own health problems to contend with: lupus, congestive heart failure, arthritis and back pain. She often is exhausted, and depression sometimes sets in. Some days she can’t bear to get out of bed.

In many ways, she was a victim of the car crash, too.

When she feels overwhelmed, she goes to her basement laundry room where she can listen to gospel music tapes, wash and fold clothes, and pray. She doesn’t go far because, as she says, her life is there in the house with Jerry.

Does leaving ever cross her mind?

“Yeah, it has,” she said quietly. “Especially if I’m here and the kids are here and I’m still pushing to go and do and trying to make a life for him, it gets really complicated. It gets congested a lot.

“Especially when every chance you make, something is falling through. Nothing is actually ever bright for you. You get depressed.”

She copes with the help of God and her family.

“God, that’s my strength,” Minnie said. “Every time I get to a point where I feel like I can’t do this, I can’t make it anymore, he’ll send someone along to help me or send someone along to show me I’m not the only one having burdens.

“Immediately, I’ll recognize what he’s doing, and I’ll go, ‘I’m going to shut up. I’m sorry. I’m going to do better. I’m going to stop complaining.’”

Minnie’s relationship with Jerry has changed, though their love for each other has not.

They sleep in the same bed, discuss child-rearing and family, pray and eat meals together.

“I still love him, and I think he still loves me,” Minnie said, turning to look at Jerry dozing in his wheelchair. “It’s a lot more kind of yak-yak at each other than it used to be. It used to be like that maybe every so often. Now it’s like every other day.

“But we kind of … he goes to his corner or his room, and I’ll go to the other part of the house and do something or play on the computer.”

There are good days. The children bring joy into their lives, and there are family gatherings, occasional trips to Mississippi and a brief summer vacation to Six Flags in St. Louis. Friends regularly drop in and out of the house.

One thought continues to trouble Minnie, though.

“Right now,” she said, “I am his everything. I’m his caretaker. What happens to him when I can no longer do it?”

Boy’s pool stolen from his backyard

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marcusfearson2

Part of my job as police reporter for the SJ-R is to thumb through media copies of police reports each day, looking for serious and unusual crime. In July 2006 I found a theft report where the stolen item was a backyard swimming pool. I did a little investigating and learned the victim was a 9-year-old boy who’d saved up his money for months to buy that pool for him and his siblings to play in.

The story ran on a Saturday. I checked my work messages from home that morning, hoping that someone in town would want to help Marcus Fearson out by finding him a new pool. There were dozens of messages by day’s end. One man went to the store promptly at 9 a.m. and brought a brand new pool for Marcus and had already dropped it off.

The police, by the way, nabbed the thief three days later.

Nine months of saving thwarted / Thieves steal pool from 9-year-old
July 15, 2006

Nine-year-old Marcus Fearson saved his allowance for months to buy himself something special.

At first he had his eye on a video game system but, after talking it over with his mom, decided a swimming pool would be just the ticket – a little indulgence to help him, his brothers and his cousins wile away steamy summer afternoons.

So on July 3, Marcus and his mother, Tiffany Fearson, went to Kmart and bought a $120 metal-frame pool. It was blue, 12 feet wide and 30 inches deep and came with its own filter pump. Marcus paid for half, and his mother put in the other half, even though she is going through bankruptcy proceedings.

“That poor kid,” Tiffany Fearson said. “he saved a while for that money. He doesn’t get much of an allowance right now.”

Marcus, who has mild autism, and his two brothers, McCory and Mekhi, even got new swim gear to wear in the pool.

Now, the only evidence there ever was a pool at the Fearson home is a vague, 12-foot-wide circular imprint in the back yard. The pool wasn’t there even long enough for the grass to turn brown underneath.

Someone dismantled and stole the pool overnight Wednesday, apparently hauling it out through the privacy fence gate in the alley behind the home, which is in the 1200 block of East Capitol Avenue.

“He knows about saving money and getting what he wants,” Tiffany Fearson said Friday. “I matched him on it, and I feel terrible that it was stolen. He liked to maintain the pool. He used to help us clean it. I thought it was great he was learning some responsibility.”

Marcus said he liked splashing in the pool and misses it.

“It was fun swimming in it,” said Marcus, who will be in the fourth grade at Owen Marsh Elementary School this fall.

Two days before the pool was taken, someone stole the ladder off it. To add insult to injury, the thieves who took the pool didn’t even take all the parts necessary to rebuild it. They left behind one of the T-shaped parts that locks the frame in place.

“You’ve got to be a pretty low life to steal a kid’s pool,” said Marcus’ grandmother, Mary Fearson.

The family has lived in its home for two years.

Last year, the Fearsons’ inflatable pool twice was the victim of thieves and vandals. They got it back the first time, but someone later slashed it, rendering it useless.

That’s why they opted for a metal-frame pool this time, assuming that no one would be able to destroy it or take it.

“When the pool was stolen last year, the kids cried. They didn’t even cry this time, they’ve gotten so used to it,” Tiffany Fearson said. “It would have been a nice thing for them to jump into today, that’s for sure.”

Human cargo

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Interstate 55 is a pipeline for many things, including smuggled illegal immigrants.

In monitoring jail booking sheets and federal court filings in 2005, I began to realize state troopers conducting traffic stops along the interstate near Springfield were finding a startling number of illegal aliens traveling in appalling conditions. Affidavits accompanying the federal charges told the stories.

humancargo

Human cargo / Smugglers use I-55 as pipeline to Chicago for illegal immigrants
Nov. 13, 2005

Picture this.

A Chevrolet Suburban hits the highway with 17 people piled inside. Most of the seats have been removed to allow more people to be crammed in.

No one is wearing seat belts, and the passengers – mostly Mexican citizens – are forced to squat below window level so no other motorists can see them.

The driver refuses to stop for bathroom breaks, so passengers must urinate in milk jugs or plastic windshield-fluid containers. If their bodily needs are any worse than that, they’re out of luck.

There might be one stop for food during the 1,800-mile smuggling trip, depending on the driver’s mood. He will remain at the wheel from Phoenix to the passengers’ destinations without napping. If he finally gets sleepy enough, he might ask another passenger to drive for a while. Neither has a valid driver’s license, nor does either have much of a grasp of the English language.

Think it’s a scene from the American Southwest? Think again. Illegal aliens are being smuggled through central Illinois every day, and the overloaded vehicles they’re riding in are a potential threat to motorists’ safety, officials say.

Interstate 55 is a popular route for transporting undocumented Mexican and Central American citizens from “load houses” in Phoenix to Chicago and various other destinations in the eastern United States.

During routine traffic stops in Sangamon, Logan, Macoupin and Montgomery counties between January 2004 and October 2005, Illinois State Police and immigration officials encountered more than 330 illegal aliens, according to numbers from the federal courts and officials with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“As far as I’m concerned, all the cases are mind-boggling. Human beings being treated as cargo is just beyond me or anybody else,” said Greg Archambeault, resident agent in charge of the Springfield ICE office.

“It’s so degrading to these people. I know they’re paying a smuggler to bring them up to the United States, but I don’t think they know what they’re getting into when they get into the back of a van with 16 other people, and they’re not allowed to stop to use the restroom or get food.”

Human smuggling organizations rake in $10 billion in profits every year, according to ICE estimates.

“The people that are being smuggled really are treated like commodities,” said Gail Montenegro, spokeswoman for the Chicago ICE office. “It’s just a business to the smugglers. They really don’t care about human safety at all.”

Federal court filings show that drivers caught locally smuggling aliens, an aggravated felony, have been sentenced to an average of 13 months in prison followed by two to three years of supervised release. After they serve their time, they typically are deported.

The victims are not charged with a crime. They usually are sent to a local jail until they can be sent back home.

In each of the recent documented smuggling cases, the passengers or their families paid a few hundred dollars to several thousand dollars to be driven to various destinations, mostly Chicago. Some, however, were going as far as North Carolina, Washington, D.C., and New York. The passengers often are expected to pay additional money once they reach their destinations.

The drivers usually are part of larger organizations that smuggle people through Mexico, over the border and into Arizona or California. Nearly every illegal passenger that’s been stopped during the past two years met up with the drivers at various load houses – usually a house, apartment or motel – in Phoenix.

Discovering a vehicle jammed full of hungry, frightened illegal aliens is nothing new for District 9 Illinois State Police. Master Sgt. Marke Bobbitt, a trooper for more than 20 years, has encountered smuggling vehicles on numerous occasions. The illegals usually are “very pleasant and very passive” despite the conditions, he said.

“When you stop them, any way imaginable of seeing people in the vehicle, you’ll see it. They’ll be squatting, lying down, underneath people’s feet. Usually the vehicles are way overloaded. That’s why when they’re in an accident, there are so many injuries, because there are so many people in there,” he said.

“We’ve seen women who’ve defecated in their pants, and it’s stained through because they won’t stop and let them out. You really feel bad for these people, because they want to get to the place where they have an opportunity to get the American dream, but to get there they’re having to endure these types of things … ”

Among the recent traffic stops that thwarted smuggling trips:

* Sept. 22. A trooper stopped a Ford van with Arizona plates near Lincoln for improper lane usage. Inside were 17 illegals.

The driver’s area was separated from the cargo area by a steel mesh divider, and a bench seat had been placed loosely at the rear of the cargo area. On the dashboard was a list with the passengers’ names, the amounts of money they owed, their destinations and points of contact to collect fees owed. The list indicated a woman already had been delivered to St. Louis and that passenger had owed $700.

Documents in the van indicated it had been driven approximately 65,000 miles during the previous 10 weeks. The passengers told authorities they had paid various smugglers in Phoenix, and several were going to pay additional money after arriving in Chicago, Texas, Alabama, Florida, Indiana and Maryland. The driver had a counterfeit Social Security card and a fake Mexican driver’s license. He was to be paid $1,000 upon returning to Phoenix after delivering all the passengers.

* June 22. A trooper came upon a Dodge Caravan with Wisconsin plates that had broken down along southbound Sixth Street near the Interstate 72 on-ramp. Inside were 11 illegals. The driver told authorities he had made arrangements with a smuggler in Arizona to drive the 10 passengers to New York City. The smuggler gave him a fake Mexican driver’s license and $500 for gasoline and food, the man said.

The passengers told authorities they paid smuggling fees ranging from $1,000 to $9,000 to be taken from Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and Ecuador through Mexico, across the border and to various U.S. destinations.

* May 19. A trooper stopped a pickup truck for going 70 mph on I-55 near Litchfield. Inside were 16 illegals. They said they had paid smugglers in Phoenix between $1,600 and $2,000 to be taken across the border and driven to Chicago and other locations. They said the driver stopped for food three times and only once for a bathroom break at a rest area. He told them to go to the restroom in pairs so they would not stand out. During the rest of the trip, he instructed them to use a jug, which originally contained window-washing fluid, as a urinal.

* March 15. A trooper stopped a minivan on I-55 near Williamsville for improper lane usage. Inside were 14 illegals. The two drivers told authorities they were going from Atlanta to North Carolina. However, the passengers said they were picked up at a load house in Phoenix. They said they paid varying amounts to smugglers in Phoenix and were going to pay additional money after finding work in Chicago.

* March 18. A trooper stopped a Chevrolet Suburban for improper lane usage and a defective windshield on I-55 at Toronto Road. Inside were 17 illegals seated on the floor and in the rear cargo area, and there were plastic jugs of urine inside. The passengers said the men were not allowed to get out of the van to use the bathroom during the 33-hour trip. The women were allowed to stop only once.

One driver told police he paid smugglers $2,200 to be transported from the border to Chicago via Phoenix, and that the smuggler provided the truck and a cell phone so he could make arrangements to have it picked up after getting to Chicago. The other driver said he crossed the border with four friends and they got lost in the desert for three days, where they met a group of 10. That group’s guide offered to smuggle him to Chicago for $1,000.

The passengers said they crossed the border together and paid various amounts of money to smugglers in Phoenix, and were going to pay more to the drivers when they got to their destinations. They were guided across the border by smugglers and taken to a load house in Phoenix.

Archambeault said there is no end in sight in terms of the number of smuggling loads coming through central Illinois. Illegal aliens are treated as a commodity who will go back to the same smuggling organization and pay more money to be taken across the border again, he said.

Bobbitt agreed.

“I think people would probably be very surprised if they knew the numbers of people we’re stopping. If I wanted to, I could stop illegals every night,” he said.

“In this day and age, you do not know who you’re encountering out there. Is it something where they’re looking for a better life and more opportunities? Or is it someone intending to do harm to the country? It’s an important issue, and it’s something Congress and the president will have to work out as far as what the policy will be.”

Fleet weak – SPD mechanics on the job

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One behind-the-scenes aspects of the Springfield Police Department is its mechanics. A police official back in 2005 suggested I do a story on the state of the department’s patrol cars. Floors were rusting out, engines had a huge number of miles on them and interiors were falling apart.

In tough economic times, replacing police patrol cars is nearly impossible for local governments. Springfield was supposed to have a five-year plan for rotating cars in and out, but it had not adhered to the plan. At the time of this story, the department had not gotten new patrol cars in five years.

I spent an afternoon at the department’s garage and was struck by how hard the mechanics work and how creative they could be with replacing parts and making do with what was on hand.

Fleet weak / Police mechanics forced to improvise to keep aging cars on road
Oct. 3, 2005

If you can imagine a flock of buzzards picking at a pile of bones, then it’s not much of a stretch to visualize what the Springfield Police Department’s mechanics do every day.

A row of seven retired Chevrolet Caprices and Ford Crown Victorias are lined up in a corner of the garage property on Singer Avenue. They’re squad cars that, just since June, have been deemed no longer safe for officers to drive, primarily because of rust problems.

They will be joined by five more by March, mechanics estimate.

The cars are dead in terms of their usefulness to patrol officers. They have rusty floorboards and body mounts, leaky trunks and failing engines. Their job now is to provide a pool of parts – everything from engines, doors and steering columns right down to light bulbs, radio knobs and seats – for mechanics who are doing all they can to keep the department’s fleet of aging patrol cars running in the safest, yet most economical, manner possible.

“It’s like a small little scrap yard back there some days,” said Dave Lawler, assistant superintendent for fleet maintenance at the police department. “We try and cut down on the expense as far as trying to buy new parts to put in old cars. We estimate a savings of $1,500 to $2,000 each month by using used parts.”

The Springfield Police Department has 250 vehicles in its inventory, of which 94 (38 percent) have more than 90,000 miles. Most of those – 68, to be exact – have more than 100,000 miles.

The fleet is aging quickly; 157 of the vehicles are models from 1994 to 1999. And as the cars continue to age, the pool of available used parts continues to shrink because those that are still out there, whether they’re part of the department’s fleet or sitting in a scrap yard someplace, are wearing out or getting wrecked at the same rate.

“We’re to the point where we’ve been keeping a lot of these cars alive through cannibalized parts,” said deputy chief Pat Fogleman, who heads the department’s administrative services division. “The problem is, our supply of cannibalized parts is drying up fast.”

The problem is going to worsen unless the city can come up with enough money to enable the department to begin buying 50 to 60 new cars each year and rotating the same number out of use. The department just received 10 new 2006 Crown Victorias at a final cost of $24,635 each after being equipped with lights, sirens, antennas and other necessities.

Previous five-year plans for the department have called for replacing patrol cars every four years, which is an accepted standard among police agencies and mechanics.

The last time the department got a significant number of new vehicles was in 2000, when the city bought 45 cars.

The department has numerous Crown Victorias, many of which have a problem with rusty frames. Their Chevrolets from 1994 have problems with rusty floorboards and body mounts. During the current budget year alone, the department has had to retire 10 cars because of rusty frames, Fogleman said.

In June, an officer was driving a 1996 Crown Victoria patrol car with 101,000 miles on it when the ball joint flew off. The officer lost control and hit a utility pole. He wasn’t injured, but officials are concerned about the possibilities.

“That’s the guys’ office for eight hours a day. If you were in a beater car with knobs breaking off, a radio that doesn’t work, maybe the window rolls down, maybe it doesn’t…” Fogleman said. “I think the guys understand times are tough. I don’t think a lot of people understand the abuse these vehicles go through.”

Patrol cars frequently are left idling while officers respond to calls or block off traffic, primarily because the lights and other equipment would quickly drain the batteries if the engines were turned off. An hour of idling is the equivalent of 33 miles of wear on a car, Lawler said.

Officers also often rapidly accelerate from a dead stop and/or quickly brake while speeding to a call. The equipment they carry on their belts – guns, handcuffs, pepper spray – has been known to rip the seat fabric.

The cars are driven every day in all kinds of weather. Water gets thrown up onto the underside of the cars, causing them to rust through and allowing water to seep into the trunks.

In at least one case, the front floorboard of a car rusted completely through, exposing carpet to the catalytic converter and melting the carpet.

Some squad cars use large amounts of oil between oil changes. One car used 33 quarts of oil, not counting oil changes, during a six-month period. Others were recorded as using 17, 22 and 23 additional quarts, respectively, during the same time frame.

Some cars – 25 of them, shared by all three shifts – are used as take-home vehicles, and some argue that mileage on those cars could be curtailed if officers weren’t allowed to drive them off duty. Fogleman said quite the opposite is true – take-home cars aren’t driven nearly as much as those used round-the-clock.

“The off-duty mileage really is a small part of the whole mileage thing,” he said. “We have found that the cars are much better maintained and last longer because ‘It’s mine, I can be held accountable for it.’ If you drive a fleet car, you park it at the end of the shift, and you don’t really care.”

Lawler said the best thing that could happen is the city would get in the habit of purchasing a group of new cars every year.

“Fifty cars right now would be a big help,” he said.

In the meantime, the department’s mechanics – perhaps “magicians” is a better description – will forge on. They will continue stockpiling used speedometer clusters, brackets, outside mirrors and flywheels. They will prepare for the next time they’re forced to fabricate a floorboard or trunk out of an old street sign. And they will remember that there likely will come another day when they must completely overhaul a patrol car with new doors, a new engine and a new rear axle.

“We have people who are willing to understand the importance of the savings,” Lawler said. “They’ve gone the extra mile in getting the cars back out on the road. We’ve done a lot of different things to try to save as much as we can.”

Black and blue: The history of black Springfield police officers

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My editor in 2005 asked me to research and write about the history of black officers in the Springfield Police Department. The assignment stemmed from ongoing claims of racial discrimination and bias within the department and the civil lawsuits stemming from those allegations.

I spent no less than six months researching the topic. I pored through reels of microfilm of old city newspapers, picked up books on the history of the city, spent hours at the Sangamon Valley Collection and interviewed several retired and current black officers.

Black and Blue / African-American officers struggling with racial divisions in the Springfield Police Department is nothing new.
Sept. 4, 2005

Ask Harry Draper about his 25 years with the Springfield Police Department, and he’ll regale you for hours with tales of solved murder cases, department politics and officer shenanigans.

He’ll reach into his front pants pocket and show you the badge he still carries around, even though he’s been retired since 1981.

His eyes get a little misty when he recalls the day in 1963 when he was the only black officer chosen to guard Martin Luther King Jr., who spoke at an AFL-CIO convention at the Illinois State Armory.

But not all of Draper’s memories are fond ones. When he joined the police force, even though the modern civil rights movement was gaining momentum, racism was overt and accepted among Springfield officers. Many black officers agree that the discrimination they experienced was far worse among their colleagues than anything they came across in the community.

At one time, black officers patrolled only in black areas of town and on the old “Levee,” the city’s red-light district downtown, and they did so on foot. Black detectives worked only on cases involving black suspects or victims. Promotions were few and far between.

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Little lion lost

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This is one of my favorite stories ever. We’d just had Steve Buttry at The State Journal-Register to talk to reporters about writing. Two things I took away from the session were reminders to write good stories and that it’s OK to write short.

Within a few days I spotted an odd classified ad in the paper. A parent was looking for her child’s stuffed lion, which had been lost in Washington Park and was desperately missed. I called up the number listed in the ad and drove over to the Thuma home to find out more about Leo and how he came to be lost.

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I wanted to write it in the style of a fairy-tale without overdoing it. This was the result:

little lion LOST … / …and found in Washington Park
May 7, 2005

Leo never intended to tumble out of a little girl’s stroller and onto the Washington Park jogging path when no one was paying attention.

And he certainly didn’t expect to spend the night in one of the park’s trees. But that was where he found himself Wednesday.

It wasn’t the first time the little stuffed toy lion – yellow, pink-tongued and matted from all the love and affection a little boy can offer – had become separated from his loved ones. There also was the sporting goods store and the gym.

His family always would come back for him. But this time, he was alone there on the path as his caretakers jogged off into the distance. In the words of another, more famous stuffed animal, “Oh, bother.”

It wasn’t long before someone else came along, spotted Leo, plucked him from the ground and carefully set him in a nearby tree, where he would be safe until his owners returned for him.

You see, Leo belongs to Noah Thuma, a fair-haired boy who likes purple Popsicles and goes to kindergarten at Owen Marsh School. And while Noah is at school, Leo keeps company with Noah’s little sister, Emily, who turns 1 today.

Six-year-old Noah received Leo as a gift when he was born, and the two became inseparable friends when Noah was about 18 months old, his mother Angie explained.

“If you know Noah, you know Leo,” she said.

Noah takes Leo when he plays with his little brother, Max, when he goes on trips to see his grandpa and when he goes to sleep at night. Leo even accompanied Noah on his first day of school.

“My first day of kindergarten I was a little shy, so I took him to school and stored him in my backpack,” Noah said. “I still get to use him for bedtime, and I love him so much.”

Emily loves Leo, too. No one in the Thuma family is exactly sure what the stuffed lion’s allure is, but all the children are drawn to him.

And that’s why Leo was in the stroller with Emily on that fateful Wednesday morning. She was sleeping, so Angie is not sure how or when Leo managed to tumble out.

When the jog was over and Angie realized Leo was missing, her heart sank. She made two trips back through Washington Park, searching for he stuffed lion. She checked with the park police. Her friend also went back through the park looking.

No Leo.

Angie knew Noah would be devastated. She went to the The State Journal-Register and placed a classified ad, assuming it was a long shot that the right person would see her plea.

“HELP!!! Lost in Wash. Prk 5/4. Stuffed animal (lion). Vry worn, but vry loved/missed. Answers to LEO. Family friend for 6 yrs. We are lost w/out him. If you find, please call … ”

That afternoon, she dreaded picking up Noah from school and breaking the news. Little Max did it for her.

“I’ve got some bad news. We lost Leo,” Max blurted out.

Noah took it better than Angie expected, but that night, when it was time to go to bed, he began worrying. Where is Leo? Will someone find him? What if he fell into the sewer? Is he cold? What if someone took him home and gave him germs?

At school Thursday, Noah’s teacher noticed he seemed troubled. When she asked if anything was wrong, he told her: Leo’s gone.

But little did Noah know that at about 10:30 that morning, a woman called his mom with welcome news. She had seen Leo in the park and knew where he could be found.

The woman had read the classified ad and recalled seeing the beloved toy in a tree where Williams Boulevard enters the park.

Angie immediately went to the park and drove around looking but couldn’t immediately find Leo. Finally, with Max in tow and Emily in the stroller, she got out and scoured the trees until she spotted the little lion.

When she picked Noah up at school that day, Max happily told Noah, “I’ve got some good news … ”

And so, the little lion, who has a battered brown wooden nose and who’s had his tongue sewed back on four times, was reunited with his best pal.

Homeless man dies in tragic fire

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In 2005 I wrote about Eddie Hanson, a local homeless man who died in a fire. He and another homeless man were inside a vacant house on the city’s north end looking for food. Eddie lit a fire so they could see. The fire got out of control, and Eddie was overcome and died. The other man escaped.

Authorities seek fire victim’s family / Identified as 41-year-old homeless man
June 9, 2005

Authorities need help finding the family of a homeless man who died Tuesday night when fire tore through the abandoned house in which he’d been squatting.

People who knew him said Edward R. Hanson, 41, worked day- labor jobs but did not talk about his family, according to Sangamon County Coroner Susan Boone.

Officials have determined that he was born in Hawaii and are contacting people in that state with the same last name.

One Web-based people finder shows 126 people in Hawaii with the last name of Hanson, while another shows more than 200.

“It’s only right and proper (that we try to find his family),” Boone said following Wednesday morning’s autopsy, which showed Hanson died of smoke inhalation and burns.

“We are going to pursue as much as we can. It’s almost like looking for a needle in a haystack with that many people by that name in Hawaii. Where do you start? We’re going to try, and anybody here who knows anything about his family, it would be helpful.”

Hanson’s body was found in a bedroom of an abandoned house at 1826 N. 11th St. after it caught fire about 9:45 p.m. Tuesday. The cause and origin of the fire was still being investigated Wednesday afternoon, according to Bob Reside, spokesman for the Springfield Fire Department.

Hanson had no driver’s license or other form of ID on him. Authorities obtained a tentative identification and were able to combine that with his fingerprints to confirm his identity. They took photographs of him to homeless shelters Wednesday morning trying to get information about his background and possible next of kin.

“Every lead we’ve had indicated that he had family, but he didn’t want to talk about his family,” Boone said. “People who did know him and the places where he worked, people did not know of his family. But we were told that he actually was a … good worker and a nice person.”

Dispatchers began getting phone calls about 9:50 p.m. Tuesday reporting the fire. When firefighters arrived, they found the house ablaze with flames showing from all the windows and openings in the building.

The house is tucked away on a short dead-end section of 11th Street. It has a large front setback, while all the neighboring homes sit closer to the street. The front yard is overgrown, and fencing surrounds the property. A railroad track runs behind the home.

Firefighters found the interior walls were brick covered with plaster, indicating it might have been a particularly old house, Reside said.

According to neighbors, the elderly man who formerly lived in the house had health problems and entered a nursing home earlier this year. Most of his belongings, including clothing, were still in the house.

It is unclear why family or friends of the previous resident had not cleaned out the house or taken care of it. Brent Lucas, who has lived next door for more than four years, said he complained to the city health department about two weeks ago after noticing animals, such as opossums, mice and cats, coming and going through a window of the abandoned house.

He also saw two homeless men enter the house Sunday and told them they shouldn’t be staying there. He said he believes a bank took ownership of the house at some point.

“I was going to call them (the health department) again, and then this happened,” Lucas said. “This could have all been avoided.”

City records indicate building officials inspected the house March 15, and notices prohibiting occupancy were posted.

Firefighters got the fire under control within about 20 minutes Tuesday night.

Firefighters found Hanson’s body when they went back inside to check the structure.

Utilities had been turned off, so investigators do not believe gas or electricity was to blame for the fire.

Hanson’s body was not found in the room where the fire apparently began, Reside said, but he declined to elaborate.

“We’re still looking into what caused it. Obviously, it’s suspicious in nature, but was it accidental or on purpose, we don’t know,” he said.

Hanson had several run-ins with law enforcement, according to Sangamon County court records. He had been arrested at least 14 times for trespassing.

In 1997, he was found unconscious, bloody and badly beaten inside his motel room at the Bel-Aire Motel, 2636 S. Sixth St. He was rushed to Memorial Medical Center with what was considered a life-threatening head wound. Police never revealed a motive for the attack.

In June 2004, The State Journal-Register reported that police had sprayed Hanson with pepper spray after he became belligerent toward officers investigating a report of a suspicious person in an alley in the 1300 block of South Eighth Street. Police found three homeless men drinking in the alley. Hanson allegedly walked up and began yelling obscenities at the officers and then refused to comply with their commands.

Friends of homeless man lost to fire say he wouldn’t accept help
 June 10, 2005

Eddie Hanson wouldn’t accept help from anyone and rarely spoke about his childhood or family, those who knew him said Thursday.

And while no one disputes he had a bad addiction to alcohol, they are quick to say he was a nice person who once put the only money to his name – the two pennies he had in a pocket – in a church collection plate.

Hanson, 41, died Tuesday night when fire tore through the abandoned house he had been staying in at 1826 N. 11th St.

Springfield Fire Department spokesman Bob Reside said in a statement Thursday evening that investigators have made a preliminary determination of the cause of the fire. Their findings will be disclosed today, Reside said.

Employees at the Sangamon County coroner’s office were working diligently Thursday to locate Hanson’s next of kin, but were having little luck.

“I tried to get help for him a long time ago. Now I want to make sure he gets a proper burial,” said Mike Hubbard, who knew Hanson for years. The two shared a house on West Reynolds Street for some time after Hubbard went through a divorce.

Hubbard couldn’t explain why Hanson was homeless.

“He was just like that,” he said. “His dad owned a hotel in Honolulu. I even tried to get him to see if we could contact his mom or dad a month or two ago, when I talked to him. I was going to try to get him some public aid help or Social Security disability, but he didn’t want to. He was like a brother to me.”

Hubbard said he believes Hanson’s mother lived in Texas at one time, but Hanson rarely spoke of her or other family members.

Hanson did stay at the Helping Hands homeless shelter from time to time, according to one woman who said he occasionally would drink coffee with her and a few others early in the mornings before they all went their separate ways for the day.

He’d been in the Sangamon County Jail as recently as May 11, when he was discharged after being jailed overnight for disorderly conduct.

Hanson had had several run-ins with police and was arrested at least 14 times for trespassing, which is what he was doing when the abandoned house on 11th Street caught fire about 9:45 p.m. Tuesday.

City officials inspected the house March 15 and posted notices prohibiting occupancy. But Hanson and other homeless people regularly came and went from the building, which still contained the former resident’s clothes, medical equipment and other belongings.

The resident, an elderly man, entered a nursing home in Petersburg several months ago because of failing health, neighbors said.

Neighbors reported seeing animals going in and out of windows at the abandoned house, which has an overgrown yard and a large setback from 11th Street. A railroad track runs behind the building.

In May 1997, Hanson was found unconscious, bloody and badly beaten inside his motel room at the Bel-Aire Motel, 2636 S. Sixth St. He was rushed to Memorial Medical Center with what was considered a life-threatening head wound. Police never revealed a motive for the attack.

Hanson, who moved to Springfield about 1994, at one time was a carnival worker, but he was a roofer at the time of the 1997 attack, according to Hubbard.

“I tried to have him get hold of his family and he wouldn’t do it. I tried to get him help because he got beat so bad in that hotel. He was in bad shape,” he said, adding that he believes Hanson recently had been running with a bad crowd of people. “It’s just sad.”

Ralph McCarty, an associate pastor at Christian Assembly Church, 2105 Reservoir St., became acquainted with Hanson several months ago, when Hanson began showing up for Sunday evening worship services and spending the night behind the church.

McCarty, who put out a pillow and blanket for Hanson to sleep on, said Hanson once explained that he liked to sleep there because no one bothered him.

He said Hanson always was alert during church services and paid attention to what was going on around him.

“He was not one of those people who came in to see what they could rack up,” he said, adding that Hanson from time to time would offer change for the church collection plate.

Hanson would not talk about his childhood with McCarty, but did mention that his parents had divorced when they lived in Hawaii and that he, his mother and his brother then moved to Texas.

McCarty said he tried to get Hanson an apartment, but a lot of people wouldn’t rent to him because of his drinking.

“He was really a good guy. He had a serious problem with drinking. I think he needed medical attention for his alcohol problem. I was thankful we had some time to spend talking. But as a homeless person, he never asked for nothing,” McCarty said. “Truly, in my heart, I believe he wanted to change, but just couldn’t.”

Janette Boedigheimer, a deputy Sangamon County coroner, said the coroner’s staff has been doing a lot of footwork in trying to locate Hanson’s family. They did learn Hanson’s parents’ names.

“We do have a couple of leads, but we don’t have anything confirmed yet,” she said. “We’re getting bits and pieces from different people. I’ve called some other agencies and gotten some things from them. We’re trying to look at the big picture, and trying to narrow it down. We’re hoping to find somebody who can lead us to the family somehow.”

Fire victim set blaze himself / Needed light to search for food in abandoned house
 June 11, 2005

The homeless man who died in a house fire Tuesday night set the fire himself in an attempt to create light so he and another man could search for food, investigators said Friday.

Meanwhile, city homeless shelter officials expressed frustration Friday that they were unable to do more to prevent such a tragedy from happening.

Springfield Fire Department investigators said the second homeless man came forward to tell them what caused the blaze that ultimately killed Edward R. Hanson, 41. That man, who has not been named, could be charged with trespassing but has not been arrested.

The two entered the abandoned house at 1826 N. 11th St. and were looking for canned goods about 9:45 p.m. The second man went into the kitchen, and Hanson went into a front bedroom, presumably to see what he could find there.

The front room was the location of the only possible exit, investigators said.

Hanson started a small fire to create light to see by, but it quickly grew, investigators said. The second man saw the fire getting out of control and ran past the flames and out of the house. Hanson tried to get out through a bedroom window, but was unable to escape before being overcome by smoke.

The second man told investigators he could hear Hanson screaming for help, but was unable to assist him.

Firefighters arrived to find flames shooting out all the windows and openings of the house, which city building inspectors posted with occupancy-prohibited signs after a March 15 inspection.

After extinguishing the fire, firefighters checking the structure found Hanson’s body in the bedroom. Sangamon County Coroner Susan Boone pronounced him dead at 10:22 p.m. An autopsy Wednesday showed he died of smoke inhalation and burns.

It was not immediately known if Hanson, who reportedly had an alcohol addiction, was intoxicated at the time of the fire.

Acquaintances of Hanson said he moved to Springfield about 1994. On Friday, the coroner’s office still was trying to locate his next of kin to notify them of Hanson’s death. It is believed he was born in Hawaii and moved to Texas with his mother and brother after his parents divorced.

Hanson worked day-labor jobs, occasionally stayed at the Helping Hands shelter and recently had been attending services at the Christian Assembly Church on Reservoir Street.

The house on 11th Street was abandoned several months ago when the owner, John Lyons, entered a nursing home, according to_ neighbors. John and Mary Lyons are listed in Sangamon County tax records as the owners. It is unknown why family or friends had not cleaned out the house or removed belongings.

The house, which was destroyed in the fire, had a fair market value of $22,254, according to the county tax rolls.

Rita Monkman-Tarr, executive director of Contact Ministries, said she had a physical reaction when she heard Hanson was the victim of the blaze.

“I had tears in my eyes and a pain in my gut. It hurt bad – in part because I knew Eddie and also because we weren’t able to stop something like this from happening,” she said.

Monkman-Tarr also is chairwoman of the mayor’s task force on homelessness. The task force was formed following the January 2004 death of 41-year-old Michael Moffett, a homeless Chicago man who had been released from prison about a month before he was found frozen to death at the Clear Lake Avenue overpass.

Moffett, who suffered from mental illness, apparently chose not to seek help from the local shelters. But after his death, local officials opened an overflow shelter in the basement of Contact Ministries to accommodate more homeless people during the winter.

Hanson, unlike Moffett, did seek shelter in the overflow facility, but beyond that would not accept help. He was considered chronically homeless.

“If you have any compassion in your heart, this is going to affect you,” Monkman-Tarr said.

She said the board of directors of Contact Ministries decided Thursday to host an overflow shelter in the basement again this winter. Otherwise, she said, officials and volunteers hope to work with other social service agencies to help homeless people get help for such problems as addiction and mental illness.

“We need to keep working with them to get the treatment they need, but we also have to be realistic to the understanding that we cannot make anyone accept treatment or decide to go through that,” she said.

Monkman-Tarr recalled running into Hanson during the city’s first homeless count the summer of 2003. She said he was “out of his head” and intoxicated. Volunteers talked to him and gave him a care package. Police officers expressed frustration about how little they could do when they encounter individuals like Hanson who are drunk and homeless, but not causing any trouble.

“They didn’t want to arrest him because they knew that wasn’t really the answer to the problem. There was no detox available. There wasn’t anything they could do with him,” she said.

Police later that night wound up arresting Hanson after he started throwing rocks at cars.

“He was a good guy. I think that every one of these people are good people, but when alcohol and other substances get hold of them, they aren’t necessarily the same people that they are when they’re not under that influence,” Monkman-Tarr said.

Planning under way for fire victim’s burial
 June 17, 2005

Officials on Thursday were beginning to plan a funeral service for a homeless man who died last week in a house fire.

Sangamon County coroner’s office employees have been unable to find anyone related to Edward R. “Eddie” Hanson to notify them of his death.

Coroner Susan Boone and Rita Monkman-Tarr, executive director of Contact Ministries, are working to put together a service for Hanson, who apparently had many friends in Springfield.

Hanson, 41, died June 7 when fire destroyed an abandoned house at 1826 N. 11th St. Hanson and another homeless man were inside about 9:45 p.m. searching for canned food. Hanson set a small fire in a front room of the house, near the only exit, so the men could see.

The blaze quickly spread. The other man ran past the flames and out the door, but Hanson was unable to escape. He died of smoke inhalation and burns.

Boone said her office has followed up on every possible lead to try to find his next-of-kin.

“We went on the Internet and got people with the same last names and called those names. We called places where he had worked, and we contacted people he had put down on his application,” she said, noting that Hanson didn’t often identify emergency contacts on his job applications.

“One person I contacted said she really didn’t know him, and it made her sad that he put her down. She said she wished she had known him and had been able to help him. That’s the kind of stuff we ran into.”

A local funeral home has agreed to provide a site for a service, and Hanson’s remains probably will be cremated and then buried in a local cemetery, Boone said. Officials still are ironing out the details, such as finding a pastor to perform the service.

Monkman-Tarr said she ran into Boone at a function Wednesday and asked if she’d had any luck finding Hanson’s family. She said she told Boone she wanted to help make sure he got a proper funeral.

“I told her that I was sure there were other individuals in the community who would want to be there, that he’d been here quite a period of time and had made friends and there would be other individuals who would want to be a part of this,” she said.

Hanson had lived in Springfield since about 1994, according to friends. They said he rarely spoke of his family but mentioned on occasion that he was born in Hawaii and he and his brother moved with their mother to Texas following a divorce.

Hanson had been a carnival worker and a roofer. He also worked day-labor jobs in Springfield.

He had been in jail on numerous occasions but recently had begun attending worship services at Christian Assembly Church, 2105 Reservoir St. He occasionally spent the night behind the church building where no one would bother him.

The coroner’s office sometimes has to bury individuals who die here with no one to claim their remains. Boone said she’s had more cases of unclaimed bodies in the past three years or so than she’s ever seen.

“We don’t have a potters’ field, and I have to take this money out of my budget to pay for it,” she said. “Thank goodness for these wonderful funeral directors. I just ask them and they just come forward and will even do a funeral service for us. I have had a bunch of those things happening lately.

“It’s really sad, especially when there is absolutely no family.”

Brother of homeless man killed in fire located
June 23, 2005A brother of Eddie Hanson, the homeless man who died in a house fire June 7, has been located and plans to attend his funeral at 11 a.m. today at Kirlin-Egan and Butler Funeral Home, 900 S. Sixth St.

Burial will follow at Oak Hill Cemetery.

Officials began planning a service late last week as the likelihood of finding Hanson’s next-of-kin diminished and several people who knew him said they wanted him to have a proper burial.

Hanson, 41, had no identification on him when his body was found inside the burning abandoned house at 1826 N. 11th St. He was homeless and, although he had many acquaintances in Springfield, rarely spoke about his family or his childhood, they said.

Several people who knew him came forward with suggestions about how officials might be able to find family members to notify them of his death, but those tips did not pan out.

Sangamon County Coroner Susan Boone said she called a man in Texas Tuesday afternoon, thinking it was a long shot that he would be a relative. The man, Kerry Hanson, returned her call that night and identified himself as Eddie Hanson’s brother.

“I left a message on his machine, and he called back,” she said Wednesday. “I told him everything that was going on and what the community was doing for Eddie.”

Kerry Hanson is expected to be at the funeral today, Boone said. Eddie Hanson apparently had siblings scattered across the country, and his mother is living, but he did not regularly keep in touch with any of them, she added.

Hanson and another homeless man were searching for food about 9:45 p.m., when Hanson set a small fire in a front room of the house, near the only exit, so they could see.

The fire quickly spread. The other man ran past the flames and out the door, but Hanson was unable to escape. He died of smoke inhalation and burns.
Two dozen attend services for man who died in fire
June 24, 2005

About two dozen people, including two younger brothers, gathered Thursday to pay respects to Eddie Hanson, the homeless Springfield man who died in a house fire this month.

John Hanson thanked those who helped Eddie, who for the most part was estranged from his family, and urged support of the efforts of social service agencies such as Contact Ministries.

“I’m glad the community is reaching out to the homeless and underprivileged,” said John Hanson, who lives in Mississippi.

He learned of his brother’s death from the coroner’s office Tuesday evening and traveled to Springfield with another brother, Kerry Hanson, for the funeral.

Officials had difficulty locating Hanson’s family because he rarely spoke of them to acquaintances in Springfield. He had no identification on him when he was found, and he did not use family members as emergency contacts on job applications and other forms.

“(Eddie) searched for happiness and meaning in the bottom of a bottle many times, and I know many of you tried to help him. I appreciate that,” John Hanson told the gathering. “The truth is, you won’t find meaning there.”

John Hanson provided answers to many of the questions people had about Eddie’s background and the possible reasons why he became homeless.

He was born in 1964 in Honolulu and had six brothers and a sister. His mother still is living. Around 1971, his mother remarried and the family moved to Dallas, which is where the children grew up for the most part.

Their stepfather left when Eddie was around 10, and “that would not have been the first abandonment he experienced,” John Hanson said.

“Unfortunately, that story plays out all across the country. The names change and the places change, but the story is the same,” he added.

Eddie Hanson got into drugs and alcohol as a teenager and made some poor choices, his brother said. At 16, he joined a traveling carnival and worked up and down the East Coast, losing touch with his family for several years.

John Hanson remembered Eddie popping in at a relative’s house one time, and then he didn’t see him again for about 20 years. “I know in my heart the boy that he was died many years ago. And the man that he became I don’t know,” he said. “I know there were probably a thousand times we wondered where he was and what he was up to.”

He said he was glad to know Eddie had developed some meaningful relationships in Springfield, and he was happy to hear people describe Eddie as a giving person.

“He gets that from my mother. He always reminded me of my mother a lot. When I hear those things about him, I think of her,” he said.

Mike Hubbard, who was roommates with Eddie Hanson at one time, said Eddie was like a brother to him.

“We had a lot of good times together. He was a very caring person. I tried to get him help, but he never would listen,” Hubbard said. “Then I moved out of my house, and he moved out onto the streets.”

Hanson’s remains were cremated and buried in Oak Hill Cemetery. Someone donated a headstone for his gravesite, and several businesses, organizations and individuals sent flowers to Kirlin-Egan and Butler Funeral Home for the service.

Hanson, 41, died when fire destroyed an abandoned house at 1826 N. 11th St. He and another homeless man were inside about 9:45 p.m. searching for canned food. Hanson set a small fire in a front room of the house, near the only exit, so the men could see.

As the blaze spread, the other man ran past the flames and out the door, but Hanson was unable to escape. He died of smoke inhalation and burns.

City refuses to disclose hiring data

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In 2004, the city of Springfield claimed to be making strides in hiring more minority employees; however, it refused to provide the documentation to back up the claim, even though it was submitted to a governmental agency.

When the city did finally release the reports, they were heavily redacted — in spite of a state attorney general’s directive that the reports are considered public record. I wrote a series of stories about the issue and attempts to obtain the documents through FOIA.

City declines to reveal gender, racial data / County judge to decide if reasoning is right
Sept. 3, 2004

The city of Springfield has declined to make public data it compiles every other year for the federal government about the gender and racial makeup of the city workforce, saying it amounts to confidential personnel information.

It will be up to a Sangamon County judge to decide if that reasoning is right.

City attorney Jenifer Johnson and Mayor Tim Davlin refused to disclose the data, which was requested Aug. 23 by the legal assistant to Benton attorney Courtney Cox, who represents black police officers suing the city for racial discrimination.

The assistant, Judy Carson, filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking “copies of all documents in the possession of the City of Springfield which reflect the race, gender and/or national origin of current and/or past employees … including all EEO reports, Labor Force Analysis and EEO Utilization Analysis for each period for which such records have been kept.”

The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission oversees a variety of employer surveys. Cities with more than 100 employees are required to submit on odd numbered years information about workforce composition, including a breakout of gender, race and ethnicity.

The data is plugged into each of several occupational categories, including officials and administrators, professionals, technicians, protective service, paraprofessional, administrative support, skilled/craft and service/maintenance. Every employee has to be counted in one of those categories. The EEOC then compiles that information into different reports that it distributes.

Johnson declined Carson’s request on Aug. 25, citing 5ILCS140/7(1)(b)(ii) of the state FOIA regulations. That particular section exempts “personnel files and personal information maintained with respect to employees, appointees or elected officials of any public body or applicants for those positions.”

Carson appealed the denial to Davlin a day later. The FOIA indicates appeals must be submitted to the head of the public body that denied the request – in this case, the mayor.

Davlin sent a letter to Carson Wednesday, denying the appeal.

“Your request was denied because it pertained to personnel information with respect to current or past employees of the city. A public body has the right to deny a FOIA request for this reason, and it appears the statute was properly followed in denying your request,” the letter reads.

Cox has responded by filing suit in Sangamon County Circuit Court, which is the next step in the appeals process. The suit asks for the city to supply the documents requested, as well as reimbursement for costs and attorney’s fees.

Johnson was unavailable for comment Thursday. City spokesman Ernie Slottag, contacted at home Thursday evening, explained the reasoning behind declining to release the data.

“The information that makes up the EEO reports comes from personnel records, and because the personnel records are confidential and exempt, our legal counsel has determined that reports generated from these exempt records are also exempt,” he said, adding that he believes there is case law supporting the city.

Cox said he would not have filed the suit if he didn’t feel the data was public information.

“Clearly, if I was asking for a person’s private personnel records, those would definitely be excluded. These are not personnel records by any stretch of the imagination. They are documents filed with the federal government, and that other communities release without any question,” he said.

Jennifer Kaplan, an EEOC spokeswoman in Washington, D.C., said the commission does not release cities’ reports. Whether a municipality is required to make its reports public would be up to local sunshine laws, she said.

Cox apparently is not the only one seeking the data. Members of the mayor’s Race Relations Task Force had requested it previously and also were denied.

However, at a special meeting Thursday, the city did provide the information to the task force. Reporters from The State Journal-Register and the Illinois Times, as well as a citizen attending the meeting, were asked to leave the room so the task force could be given the information.

The panel cited discussion of personnel matters in closing the meeting to the public, but two of its members expressed concern about how the matter was being handled.

“I’m intrigued because for years now we have discussed numbers relative to the police and fire departments. If those are OK, then why are the other numbers not?” asked task force member Dan Stout.

Another member, Bob Blackwell, indicated the group would try not to close the meeting any longer than necessary “because we are not real comfortable with having to ask you all to leave.”
City will release data on work force / Race, gender figures have been withheld
Sept. 16, 2004

Previously withheld data about the race and gender makeup of Springfield’s city work force will be released by the end of the week, city attorney Jenifer Johnson said Wednesday.

The city is releasing the information compiled for the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission at the direction of aldermen, not because of pressure from the news media or a lawsuit filed by an attorney who represents Springfield’s black police officers, she added.

Assistant Illinois attorney general Terry Mutchler contacted Johnson on Wednesday to say the agency considers the EEOC data public record and to discuss a northern Illinois appellate court ruling Johnson has cited in declining to release it.

Johnson has argued that making the information public could violate some employees’ right to privacy.

According to a spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office, Mutchler sent the city a letter saying that the EEOC filings should be released and noting that the city had agreed to do that. The letter was faxed and mailed to the city Wednesday.

The city, however, will release the data in a repackaged format; an employee breakdown by job category will not be included so as not to reveal any personal information. Johnson said she will create a form that contains the data, which is based on the city’s most recent EEOC filing.

She said the form she will release is consistent with what the city’s position has been all along. She said she and Mutchler agreed that what the city intends to release is OK.

“That’s all along why the city has objected to releasing the document in whole, because there is personally identifiable information. I understand no one has asked for names – the document doesn’t have names – but based on the breakdown by job category, it’s easy to personally identify employees,” Johnson said, adding that she is comfortable with the legal advice she and her assistants have rendered on the issue.

“The city certainly has no objection to releasing the general statistical information. Our concern all along has been protecting the privacy of our employees, which the case law indicates we should do.”

Johnson and Mayor Tim Davlin have declined to release the actual EEOC filing, saying it reveals personal information about city employees, particularly those who work in one-person offices.

Melissa Merz, spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office, confirmed Wednesday that the agency considers release of the EEOC report a matter of public information.

“It is our view that the information being sought in this instance is public record. The FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request sought gender and racial statistics that the city is required to keep. It is not an invasion of personal privacy to release that statistical information,” she said.

“It could be an invasion of personal privacy to release personal identifiers, such as name and race together; however, the report is public record, and the statistical information should be released.”

The State Journal-Register, after learning earlier this month that city officials did not intend to release the data, contacted the attorney general’s office to find out whether the EEOC filing is considered public information. The newspaper has filed a Freedom of Information request for the data.

A legal assistant to Courtney Cox, the southern Illinois attorney who is representing a group of black police officers who are suing the city for racial discrimination, also asked for the information in a FOI request.

Johnson denied the request. It was appealed to Davlin, who also denied it. Cox then filed suit in Sangamon County Circuit Court. The case is pending.

Cox could not be reached for comment Wednesday evening.

Johnson, in declining to release the data, cited a 1990 ruling, known as CBS v. Cecil Partee. The ruling noted that providing the names and races together of governmental employees could constitute an invasion of privacy. CBS had sought information including names and races of all Cook County assistant state’s attorneys, as well as names, positions, dates of hire and salaries for a host of other employees.

The ruling does not preclude municipalities from releasing EEOC filings, only race and names together. In some cases, officials legally can release the forms and black out any sensitive information.

At the Sept. 7 Springfield City Council meeting, aldermen asked that the information be released.

The attorney general oversees enforcement of the state’s Freedom of Information Act, which requires certain types of public records be accessible to provide “full and complete information regarding the affairs of government and the official acts and policies of those representing them.”

The act allows for some exemptions, such as personnel files, personal information, documents revealing the identity of people who file complaints, information that deprives a person of a fair trial or impartial hearing and records that could endanger the safety of police officers.
Hiring report to be heavily edited / State AG’s office tells city it’s all public information
Sept. 17, 2004

The city of Springfield plans to release two documents today regarding the race and gender makeup of its work force – a heavily edited copy of its most recent EEOC report and a summary of its contents.

An attorney who requested the data isn’t satisfied, though, saying he’d rather see the entire report “than what they want to create to pass out.”

Releasing the 33-page federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filing, even with much of the information blacked out, marks the second change in two days in the city’s position that it would not make the report public. Officials have said it contains confidential personnel information.

The Illinois attorney general’s office, which oversees enforcement of the Illinois Freedom of Information Act, maintains the document is public information and urged the city to release it, according to a letter assistant attorney general Terry Mutchler sent the city on Wednesday.

The report includes a breakdown of the city’s work force by job category, salary range, race and gender. It contains only aggregate data, not employees’ names or other identifiers.

However, city attorney Jenifer Johnson said Thursday that releasing the complete EEOC report would allow someone to cross-reference it with other information the city makes public and potentially identify the race of some employees. According to the Freedom of Information Act, the names, positions, salaries and dates of hire of governmental employees are public information.

Allowing the public to see the structure of the document will enable people to understand the specific nature of the information the city is required to provide, as well as why it could potentially violate employees’ privacy, Johnson said.

She created a summary of the race and gender information contained in the report, and that will accompany the EEOC filing when it is released today. The summary will not include an employee breakdown by job category.

“The fact that this (EEOC) document doesn’t have names specifically attached to it to me is really irrelevant considering how substantially these categories are broken down, because anyone who cared would be able to match that up in many, many cases,” Johnson said.

State law does not require the city to create a summary of the information, but Johnson said she did it to satisfy questions about the race and gender makeup of the city’s work force. Aldermen at the Sept. 7 city council meeting requested that such a summary be prepared.

The EEOC information became an issue recently after Johnson and Mayor Tim Davlin declined to release it to the attorney representing Springfield’s black police officers in a discrimination lawsuit against the city.

The attorney, Courtney Cox, filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the documents, but Johnson and Davlin rejected it.

Cox has since filed suit against the city, and that case is pending. The State Journal-Register also has filed a FOI request for the information.

Johnson cited a 1990 Illinois appellate court case as support for her decision to deny release of the EEOC reports. In that case, known as CBS v. Cecil Partee, the court said that providing the names and races together of governmental employees could constitute an invasion of privacy. CBS had sought information, including names and races of all Cook County assistant state’s attorneys, as well as names, positions, dates of hire and salaries for a host of other employees.

However, the ruling indicates the state’s attorney’s office did release its EEOC filings to CBS, and the court took no exception to that.

Neither Cox nor the newspaper has asked the city to reveal names of city employees together with their races.

The State Journal-Register, after learning earlier this month that city officials did not intend to release the data, asked the attorney general’s office whether the EEOC filing is public information.

Mutchler’s letter to the city says that “aggregate numbers without containing personal identifying information for each employee generally would not constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. Moreover, a public body is required under the Act to separate the exempt from the non-exempt information and disclose the non-exempt information, in this case, names, if they are specifically coupled with race identifiers.”

The letter also indicates the Cook County case is not applicable in this situation.

Mutchler said Johnson called her Thursday to ask for additional advice regarding whether the original EEOC document needed to be provided with the summary. Johnson later sent Mutchler a letter indicating the city’s 2003 EEOC document contains personally identifying information and that under her reading of the Cook County case, the information is exempt from disclosure. It also says the city will release the report after redacting all identifying information, “which unfortunately is almost the entire document.”

Davlin has said he feared that an employee might sue the city for releasing the report and that he hoped someone would take the city to court so a judge could say definitively whether the filings should be made public.

Cox said Thursday that he believes the city is still hiding information.

“Instead of turning (the EEOC report) over, now they want to create their own forms,” he said. “I think it’s more reliable to see what they’ve turned in and told the federal government than what they want to create to pass out. I want to look at what they’re going to present, but I doubt it will persuade me not to pursue the Freedom of Information suit to obtain the actual original documents.”

Ward 1 Ald. Frank Edwards, who has pushed for the report’s release, said he, too, is disappointed with the Davlin administration.

“They said we were going to do things different and we were going to be open and we were going to be this and we were going to be that. It looks like the same old deal to me,” he said. “The people of the community have the right to know what their government is doing. These behind-closed-doors, backroom dealings – no wonder we’re getting sued all the time.”

7.1% minorities in city jobs / Compared with 20% of Springfield’s population

Sept. 18, 2004

Minorities are underrepresented in the city of Springfield’s work force, according to data released Friday.

Non-whites make up 7.1 percent of the overall work force, while they account for about 20 percent of Springfield’s population, according to 2000 Census figures.

The head of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People called the numbers “an embarrassment,” while the chairman of the mayor’s own race relations task force criticized the city for its lack of openness in the matter.

After initially refusing to release the information, the city provided The State Journal-Register with a summary of its 2003 Equal Employment Opportunity Commission EEO-4 filing, along with a heavily edited copy of the actual report.

The newspaper asked for the data in a Freedom of Information Act request on Sept. 7, the same day aldermen requested that it be made public.

The summary, put together by city attorney Jenifer Johnson, is a spreadsheet of repackaged information from the report. It includes EEOC “job functions” but gives no indication of the departments employees work in; the number of employees in each job function; and a breakout of the number of white men and women, black men and women and men and women from “other” ethnic groups who work in each job function.

The 33-page EEOC report, which the city must file every other year, was based on employees of the city between July 2002 and June 2003. Mayor Tim Davlin took office in April 2003.

Johnson said she blacked out any information on the report she believed would allow the public to identify individual employees. In refusing to release the entire contents, city officials said doing so could violate workers’ right to privacy, because anyone who viewed it might be able to determine a particular employee’s race.

But not only does the EEOC filing not include names for the city’s 1,586 employees, there is no explanation of the racial categories jobs into which jobs are slotted. The report identifies workers by general “job categories” – administration, professionals, technicians, protective services, paraprofessional, administrative support, skilled craft and service/maintenance. It includes eight salary ranges within each category and then lists the number of men or women in racial categories identified only as “B” through “K.”

Minorities are concentrated in relatively few jobs, based on the city’s data. The highest percentage, 30.9, work in “public welfare” jobs.

City officials, contacted through a spokeswoman late Friday afternoon, just after the report was released, refused to provide further explanation of what is considered a “public welfare” job, saying that could violate employees’ privacy. The city has no public welfare department.

The city’s data shows 15.4 percent of minorities work in “financial administration” positions, 14.3 work in “other” jobs, and 11.5 work in jobs pertaining to “streets and highways.”

Baker Siddiquee, chairman of the Mayor’s Task Force on Race Relations, said the committee has been asking the city for the EEOC data for about six months. At the group’s Sept. 2 meeting, they were allowed to view a summary of the data, broken down by department, but were not allowed to keep it, make notes or copy it.

He said the group has become increasingly frustrated by the city’s reluctance to share the information. Members sought the data so they could begin talking to various departments with good minority-hire numbers to find out what they are doing to diversify and share that information with other departments.

“Our group openly expressed they are not happy (with the lack of information from the city),” Siddiquee said. “I think that for us, we’re puzzled because we’re already discussing the low representation in two departments – police and fire – so what difference does it make if there are two or three other departments on the same list?…

“Openness is critical. If we are to have any impact as the mayor’s task force, the first thing is information and openness. We are advisory to the mayor. If we cannot reach the administration and provide our advice, then what is the role of this so-called task force?”

Rudy Davenport, president of the Springfield branch of the NAACP, described the city’s minority employment numbers as “dismal.”

“The black total is only 6.8 percent in the entire city (work force). Actually, we are at about 13 percent of the population, so you can see the city really hasn’t made a great deal of progress. They haven’t made any, really,” said Davenport, who noted that he and the NAACP have never had access to racial and gender data for all city employees.

“Certainly, I can see why they would not want it released. It’s an embarrassment to the city. It’s an embarrassment that we allow things to get to the state where this is reflected as such. It really does not bode well, I would think, for the city as far as being the land of Lincoln and the image we want to project.”

Davenport said NAACP members have discussed the city’s reluctance to release the data and believe it reflects poorly on the administration, especially once the Illinois attorney general’s office confirmed the data could be released. He said members became suspicious of the city’s motives.

Ward 1 Ald. Frank Edwards said the numbers indicate the city has too few minority employees. He asked why other city departments have not been pressed to hire minorities, while a great deal of emphasis has been placed on police and fire department hiring.

“All these politicians and all these people who’ve been pushing the numbers on the police and fire department, I think they’ve got a lot to explain because all these exempt jobs and all these other jobs that are non-testing positions haven’t been filled with minorities and women,” he said.

“I’ve always said our (fire) department should reflect he makeup of our community. I think that should hold true for all departments at the city.”

According to the city’s summary, the “fire” job function – presumably firefighters – has the least number of minorities at 2.2 percent.

Courtney Cox, the attorney representing several black police officers in a discrimination lawsuit against the city, sought the EEOC data in a FOIA request that was rejected by the city. He has since filed suit for the information. He said Thursday he didn’t believe the city’s summary would be adequate for his purposes and said he would rather see the entire unedited EEOC report “than what they want to create to pass out.”

The Illinois attorney general’s office, which oversees enforcement of the state FOI Act, maintains the EEOC filings are public information and urged the city to release them, according to a letter assistant attorney general Terry Mutchler sent the city earlier this week.

Davlin has said he fears an employee might sue the city for releasing the report and that he hopes someone will take the city to court so a judge can rule whether the filings should be made public.

In a statement the city released Friday afternoon, Johnson reiterated the data was being released only because aldermen requested it.

“This in no way changes our position that requests for a specific breakdown of positions not be allowed under FOIA,” she said. “We stand by our earlier determination and are anxiously awaiting further clarification from the courts.”

Davlin mum on number of minority hires / Mayor fears threat of lawsuit
Sept. 22, 2004

Springfield Mayor Tim Davlin was unable to say how many minorities he’s hired since taking office last year, but he believes his numbers are considerably higher than those of previous administrations.

Davlin, following Tuesday’s Springfield City Council meeting, indicated he was reluctant to put in writing how many non-whites he has hired out of fear of being sued.

“That’s my only concern,” he said, “not to please the press, but to make sure the city of Springfield does not have a lawsuit where we pay out a monetary claim to anyone, because we do not have the money.”

The Davlin administration on Friday – after being prodded by the press, aldermen and others – released a summary that shows the city has a 7.1 percent minority hire rate. The summary was based on information compiled for a mandatory federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission report the city filed in 2003.

Davlin said the minority hire numbers should be compared to the number of non-whites in Springfield’s work force, not the city’s minority population as a whole.

City officials and local leaders in the past have talked about having the city government’s work force reflect the makeup of the community, which is 20 percent minorities, according to 2000 Census data.

Davlin instead cited a 2004 report compiled by the Illinois Department of Labor that shows Springfield’s “total civilian work force” in 2002 included 7,809 minorities. That’s 7.2 percent of the available labor force, according to the report.

He said comparing the city’s minority hire numbers to the labor report data is more appropriate than comparing the numbers to the city’s total minority population.

“To say that our goal is 20 percent because that’s the population, that would far exceed anything that the labor statistics would ever say is possible,” he said, adding that removing police and fire positions from the equation shows the city has an 8.6 percent minority hire rate.

The mayor said he met Monday with representatives of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to make sure “they understood the numbers and make sure that we know how to compare things.”

“It just shows that when you release raw numbers, it doesn’t mean anything. You’ve got to be able to understand what those numbers are,” he said.

The 33-page EEOC report, which the city must file every other year, was based on employees of the city between July 2002 and June 2003. Davlin took office in April 2003.

He said his administration is working hard to recruit more minorities to work for the city.

“I think we’re doing things that have never been done previously. We’re committing police officers to be full-time recruiters, taking someone off the streets where we now have to make up for that in other ways,” he said. “The recruiting we’re doing at the fire department and everything we’ve done in conjunction with the NAACP and the Urban League … I think it’s important to note that we’re doing everything we possibly can and things that have never been done in previous administrations.”

Davlin also deflected the notion that some community members believe his administration has something to hide, given its reluctance to release the minority data.

“So far, to date, I’ve never had one person complain to me that we’re trying to hide anything. I think what I hear are positive things, that what I’m trying to do is protect the city of Springfield from future lawsuits,” he said. “My job is to protect the city of Springfield, and sometimes you’ve just got to take a little heat in doing that.”

Davlin also took a swipe at Ward 1 Ald. Frank Edwards, who has criticized him for not hiring enough minorities. Davlin called Edwards’ statements “hypocritical,” saying he hired 20 white male firefighters during his tenure as fire chief between March 2001 and October 2002.

“He’s the one who’s actually responsible for these low numbers … and never doing anything at all, never putting a firefighter out recruiting and putting resources in a different area. Yet he’s the hypocrite saying we’re doing such a bad thing,” Davlin said.

“I inherited those numbers under this administration. But how hypocritical can you be when the numbers are his responsibility?”

Edwards said he was the first fire chief to put together a recruitment team made up of minorities, women and white firefighters and that he put the current fire department recruiter, Mark Dyment, in that position. He said he took several other steps to recruit minority firefighter candidates to the department, and noted that the fire chief does not hire firefighters, it’s human resources and the mayor who do.

“I think, as usual, the mayor’s talking out of one side of his mouth politically and doesn’t know what he’s talking about out the other side of his mouth,” Edwards said.

“If the mayor really wants to talk about his record, let’s talk about who he has hired and who he has let go. If you just look at the small cadre of people he’s hired, you’ll find a great disparity,”

In other business Tuesday, aldermen approved spending $2,000 for the public health department to rent the Prairie Capital Convention Center on Oct. 23 for a “drive-through flu shot clinic.”

Anyone seeking a flu vaccination will be able to drive through the center and receive a shot without leaving their vehicle. The clinic will take place between 8:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m., and health department officials expect to give out at least 500 vaccinations. Health department director Ray Cooke said he has never heard of another public health department conducting such a clinic.

The council also OK’d several appointments to the city’s Historic Sites Commission. Davlin reappointed Nancy Evans, Patricia Doyle and Ron Ladley to the commission, along with new appointees Stephen D. Myers, Robert J. Barker and Thomas J. Cullen.

Carl Madison makes no apologies

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carlmadison2

In April 2002 I was asked to write a profile of Carl Madison, the well-known and sometimes controversial leader of the Springfield chapter of the NAACP. Carl has since moved to Ohio, but he still keeps up on race issues in Abraham Lincoln’s hometown.

No apologies / Criticism part of local NAACP head Madison’s job
Sunday, April 14, 2002

Civil rights activist Dick Gregory once said that when black people need help, they call on two things – Jesus Christ and the NAACP.

In Springfield, when people call on the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, they get Carl Madison.

For the last five years, Madison, 37, has led the local chapter and brought attention to a variety of issues, including alleged gender bias in the fire department, alleged racial discrimination in the police department, alternative education for expelled students and recruitment of more minority teachers for Springfield schools.

It’s a job that has brought both challenges and criticism, enough so that Madison jokes that’s the reason he went out and bought a golden retriever puppy, to make sure he had a friend.

“It’s had its ups and downs. Everybody says being branch president is a tough job,” Madison says, sliding open his patio door to let 8-month-old Max into the yard for an afternoon romp.

When he began as NAACP president, Madison received two or three calls a day from people seeking help. He estimates he now receives about 25.

Some are from victims of discrimination. Others have been taken advantage of. Some want help keeping their kids in school. A few don’t know where else to turn.

Among them was Shirley Jones-Gooden, who rang Madison’s doorbell at home to see if he could find out why her son, Bennie Lee Jones, died after falling and apparently hitting his head at the Sangamon County Jail on Feb. 14.

“Carl was home and I went in and explained the situation,” she recalls.

“He was with me every step of the way, all the way through it. I don’t think the family could have endured this alone,” she says. “He was very supportive. He would visit at the hospital with me. He shed tears. He was emotional, just like it touched him as much as it did the family. He went the whole nine yards.”

While Madison has won many supporters with his efforts, he has also been a lightning rod for criticism at times, as reflected in letters to the editor of The State Journal-Register over the last year:

“In regards to Carl Madison’s statement that the NAACP would ‘roll its sleeves up and address the issue of a retest’ on the Springfield Fire Department’s agility test: Please keep rolling until they cover your mouth, Carl. We’re sick of listening to you whine.”

“It was no surprise to see Carl Madison on the front page asking for yet another handout.”

“I see Carl Madison is at it again. Wake up, Carl!”

Such criticism is part of the job, Madison says, making no apologies for who he is or what he does.

“A lot of times what people do is take it personally. It’s never personal. It’s just business. I mean, what’s the expectation? I don’t know what citizens expect. I’m the NAACP president,” he says.

“They should know when I address issues they’re going to be about civil rights, they’re going to be about equality and fairness, they’re going to be about discrimination. … If I’m addressing those, I’m doing my job.”

Rudy Davenport, a longtime member of the NAACP, says Madison’s greatest strength is that he knows the issues – often before they become issues.

“There is some cost to acting upon these things. They take their toll. There is criticism and a lot of other things. One thing about being in front like him, you sort of live in a fishbowl. You’re always visible – your good and your bad. I don’t know if many of us could take that.”

Growing up on the east side 30 years ago was the best time of his life, Madison says. His father, McClinton Madison, was a World War II veteran who worked as a welder at Fiatallis for 34 years before passing away on Thanksgiving Day in 1993.

McClinton built a house on 18th Street for his wife, Barbara, and his five children. He also built a hairdresser shop inside the home, allowing Barbara to work and be at home for Carl and his brothers and sisters.

Looking back, Madison says, there was less crime in his neighborhood when he was growing up. He also cannot recollect ever experiencing racial discrimination when he was a youngster.

“It’s after you become an adult and live here. It’s completely different from growing up here,” he said.

He attended Griffin High School for two years, then transferred to Calvary Academy, graduating in 1982 with the school’s first graduating class. He was a high school athlete, which is how he met his wife, Mia.

“She’s my high school sweetheart,” Madison says. “She went to Lanphier, and she was a pompom girl. I played basketball for Calvary.”

The two have been married 17 years, with 14-year-old twins, Carl Jr. and Chelsea, born while Madison was serving a six-year stint overseas in the Air Force. Madison also has a 7-year-old daughter from another relationship.

Family time, he says, usually consists of gathering in their home on Capitol Avenue for nights of pizza and videos. They also enjoy weekend trips to Chicago, where one of Madison’s brothers lives.

While his father had a great influence on him, he says his life has been most influenced by the man who baptized him – the Rev. Rudolph Schoultz, pastor at Union Baptist Church, where the Madison family attends services. Schoultz, who died in 2000, was known throughout Springfield for his political activism.

“We were very close, and we became even closer after my father passed,” Madison says.

“If you see me out here addressing the hard issues, you can probably either thank or fault Rev. Schoultz because he was that type of person. He addressed the hard issues and so I’m kind of, when it comes to addressing issues, I feel I’m probably an extension of what he would want to see me doing.”

Charlie Houghland, owner of Family Video, also had an influence on Madison, he says, by giving him his first job selling coffee in downtown Chicago after he got out of the Air Force.

“For the most part, I was in a suit jacket every day and meeting with people in Chicago, making coffee sales in the entire Amoco building and things of that nature,” he says. “Those are huge accounts, so you have to have a certain business savvy about yourself.”

The pressures of city life took their toll, however, and Madison moved back to Springfield. He began a series of factory jobs, working at A.E. Staley Manufacturing in Decatur, then for Cargill in Springfield. He eventually became a corporate supervisor for Bridgestone/Firestone in Decatur – a job that ended earlier this year when the plant closed.

Madison has traded his employee handbook for college textbooks.

When the plant closed, he decided to go back to school, enrolling at Illinois State University. Though he already has a two-year degree in business administration, he decided to pursue a bachelor’s in political science.

His studies could come in handy soon, as Madison admits he is giving serious consideration to a run for local office and may make an official announcement of his intentions by the end of the year. He declined to reveal his political party.

“I’m considering making a bid. I won’t say what for, but I’m considering getting into local politics this year,” he says. “It’s one thing to be on the sidelines and saying when things are wrong. I believe those who are on the sidelines should become a part of the process and make the changes they feel necessary.”

Word of Madison’s possible run for office has not been embraced by everyone. T.C. Christian, publisher of Pure-News USA, a local publication that targets primarily African-American readers, has said publicly that he believes Madison is using his role as NAACP president as a springboard into politics.

In a March editorial, Christian wrote the NAACP “needs a designated driver,” a reference to Madison’s January 2001 drunken driving arrest, to which he pleaded no contest.

In addition, the Black Guardians Association, which represents black Springfield police officers, has stated in a letter to Madison that his assistance to them has been “counterproductive, highly suspect and apparently self-serving.”

Madison denies the accusations, maintaining that he and the NAACP have honorable intentions and that his role with the NAACP will not conflict with a political career because he would have to give up one to pursue the other.

“If I decide to choose to run for a political office, I know clearly that I can’t hold a political office and be branch president at the same time. The bylaws won’t allow that,” Madison says.

Davenport says it is not unheard of for NAACP members to pursue careers in politics.

“I think if that’s what his inclination is, God bless him and power to him. We don’t have enough young people with Carl’s knowledge and his savvy to go into politics,” he says.

Brian McFadden, chief of staff for Mayor Karen Hasara, says it is common for people with political aspirations to have worked with community organizations first.

“If you look around the faces on the city council, there’s a lot of them that came out of community involvement, whether it’s neighborhood organizations, civic groups or athletics,” he says. “I don’t think it’s fair to criticize someone for that.”

In the meantime, Madison says he will continue to focus on issues facing the NAACP, including firefighter testing, conflicts within the police department, the organization’s alternative school for students who have been expelled and the creation of a legal defense corporation for Springfield area residents who need legal representation.

Madison says that before he joined the military, he never would have guessed he’d one day be back in Springfield, aggressively leading a civil rights organization.

It was a chance visit to a concentration camp in Germany, where he was stationed, that made him think seriously about addressing inequalities among people.

“When I saw that, it had an impact on me. I just realized how hate impacted the lives of the Jewish community,” he says. “I was only 19 years old. At that point, I knew I wanted to address some inequalities at some point in my life.”

It was during that time, too, that Madison learned about the Springfield race riots of 1908. The two days of riots left two whites and four blacks dead as well as 40 black-owned homes and 15 black-owned businesses destroyed. Outrage over the incident led to formation of the NAACP.

When Madison returned to Springfield, he got involved with an organization called Monument 1908, which successfully saw to it that a memorial was erected to the victims of the riots.

Madison eventually was approached by members of the Springfield NAACP chapter’s nominating committee.

“He wanted to be in a leadership position for the right reasons. It wasn’t for any self-promotion. He just had a willingness and an eagerness to do some community work,” Davenport says. “He was working in a factory in Decatur at the time. I thought that was something very unusual and a good quality. He really impressed me as someone who knew how to do the hard work and get their fingernails dirty, yet still knew what the problems of the working community were.”

Madison became president of the local chapter in December 1996. In 1997, at 32, he was honored as the youngest NAACP branch president in the Midwest.

His first order of business as president was to set a course for the organization to become more aggressive and visible. While specific membership numbers are not made public, the local chapter has hundreds of members, according to Mary Daniels, the membership chairwoman. That’s up 20 percent in the last year, Madison said.

While some of the issues, such as minority hiring in the police department, go back many years, “we’ve really gone in a different direction,” he said.

Madison is pleased the people who call him for help come from diverse backgrounds, both racially and economically.

“The NAACP must now stand in this century for people of all colors. That’s what we have to stand for because people of all colors get discriminated against,” he says. “I don’t know if the citizens of Springfield are realizing what we’re doing, but we crossed that racial line many times in my leadership.

“Look at it this way, I’m a person who likes to get things done, and I think the weakness that I have is the inability to make change happen faster. I’m not afraid to pull the trigger when I need to, and that trigger is litigation. .. .There’s only so much talking, only so much negotiation that you can do before you get into meetings on the meetings, agendas on the agendas and that sort of thing.

“I don’t mind talking, but I like to talk and I like to see action after.”

McFadden, the mayor’s top aide, attended Griffin High School with Madison for a while. The two find themselves talking at least weekly about issues that often are controversial.

“It’s a little different because it seems like it wasn’t that long ago that you were in gym class and working on chemistry experiments, and now you’re dealing with much more serious issues,” McFadden says.

“The relationship’s professional and the meetings are always good meetings in the sense that they never get out of hand. .. . Carl usually makes his point, and we make our point.”

If Madison has a weakness, McFadden says, it’s that he takes on too many problems instead of being more selective or delegating them to other people.

“The key to jobs like these are you can’t fight everybody. You’ve got to prioritize things. Sometimes it looks like he’s all over the board and sometimes picks the wrong fight,” McFadden says. “I think sometimes that hurts the organization in the sense that some people may wonder what’s really going on.”

Davenport says Madison has a natural interest in helping everyone on his own, which sometimes can work against him.

“I think that if I could give him some friendly advice, that’s what I would advise him to do – use more of the organization to do things for him. I’ve seen him just exhausted by trying to do everything,” he says. “To me, I see it as a weakness because in the long run he’s going to be run down, I think, before his time. He has to learn how to take it easy and how to delegate.”

For all the local chapter’s hard work and dedication, Madison speculates there likely will never be a day when the Springfield NAACP can conclude that its work is done here.

“Currently, the branch is so strong that we can take on any issue in the city of Springfield. With all the issues in the city, you’ve got to have a strong organization. You have other organizations, but the pure and simple fact is we’re the biggest and baddest on the block when it comes to dealing with civil rights issues and inequalities,” he says.

“But if we take a look at the societal aspect of our city, we’re light years from where we ought to be. I’d like to see, in my vision, where I’d be able to put the NAACP out of vision. I think that is the ultimate vision.”