West Chicago

I admit I do not have much knowledge of the gangs in the suburb of West Chicago, but I do know this suburb has been gang banging since the 1980s and had some of the earliest suburban gang activity in Du Page County.  The suburb has always had issues with Satan Disciples, Latin Kings, Latin Counts and even the Sin City Boys but in recent years there has been a major influx of a Los Angeles based street gang known as the Surenos (pictured).  West Chicago is often heavily criticized for having a high crime and heavy gang activity; however, the suburb is actually one of the safer suburbs in the Chicago metropolitan area, you can see these stats on Neighborhood Scout and City Data.  The south side of town is where most of the crime gravitates toward probably because that area is closer to Aurora.

Chicago based street gangs entered the suburb sometime back in the 1980s.  According to a Gang Crimes Task Force report made in 1986, West Chicago was one of the suburbs mentioned with the most amounts of gang members in Du Page County (Chicago Tribune Patricia M. Szymczak, October 22, 1989), and you can imagine they were probably members of the Latin Kings, Satan Disciples and Latin Counts.

Many people like to get upset when discussing West Chicago blaming Hispanic people for the surge of street gangs in West Chicago, granted, Chicago based street gangs did migrate alongside Latino migration in the 1980s; however, the gangs effect all races and the vast majority or Latino people that moved to West Chicago were looking to escape the grip of violence and heavy gang activity in Chicago, so blaming a certain race is foolish especially since the suburb has seen many white gang members over the years.

West Chicago’s most intense gang activity happened in the 1990s, which is when several drive by shootings occurred and some dead bodies turned up. A lot of the heavy gang activity in the suburb was pinned heavily on the Satan Disciples street gang in 1999 when Du Page County prosecutors sued 22 high ranking Satan Disciples for allegations of harassment of police and citizens and using weapons to fight turf battles (Chicago Tribune Art Barnum, October 5, 1999).  The law suit may have had an effect on the Satan Disciples, but it did nothing to stop gang activity of Los Angeles based street gang like the many different Sureno gangs that migrated to the suburb.

West Chicago may not be one of the more dangerous suburbs in the Chicago metropolitan area but the village had some of the earliest activity in the earlier part of the 1980s, and the community experienced some pretty intense gang wars in the 1990s which makes this suburb deserve mention.