Bensenville

Ah yes, Bensenville the town that got a lot of its fame from being the home of the oldest running commercial in Chicago area history from Victory Auto Wreckers that aired from 1985 to 2015. Other than Victory Auto Wreckers most people do not hear much about this suburb and when they do they hear it has always been a bad neighborhood, which could not be further from the truth; however, there was a significant gang element in this suburb up until the 2010s decade and it is time this is explored so I can share exactly where in town this all happened and I can shed light on how and why it all happened.

Bensenville was first settled by the white man in the year 1833 by Hezekiah Dunklee and Mason Smith that came from the east coast.  The new name of the community was Dunklee’s Grove, of course named after Hezekiah Dunklee.  Eventually a society of farmers took up residence in the area and built up a cash crop farming industry that became the main economic life force of this community.

In the year 1872, Dedrich Struckmann, Henry Korthauer, and Frederick Heuer and others purchased Dunklee’s Grove then subdivided it, in 1873 the town was renamed “Bensenville” by Henry Schuette.  Between 1872 and 1873 an actual town with subdivisions began.  In 1884 the town was officially incorporated.

In the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s Bensenville’s population boomed, and new subdivisions were built up, the most notorious of them was the apartments and houses that were built just south of O’Hare Airport by York Street and Irving Park Road.  The expansion of this community also brought a larger Mexican population to the area.

Beginning in 1958, Bensenville saw another large housing boom that ran parallel to O’Hare Airport employment expansion as passenger flight business increased in the late 1950s and early 1960s.  This brought a boom in Bensenville and all the O’Hare area suburbs.  Grand Avenue became the scene of several gambling resorts and strip clubs; however, the Bensenville part of Grand Avenue did not seem to be affected by this.  Several new homes were built in eastern Bensenville east of York Street as this was the area closest to the airport.  This construction boom also brought in the legendary apartments along David Drive between Grand Ave and Belmont.  These were built in 1959 and would later become synonymous with gang activity.  At the time they were constructed to be affordable apartments for O’Hare workers in their earlier parts of their careers until they earned more salary.  A grocery store and strip mall were built at Grand Ave and York to serve this new part of Bensenville, east Bensenville residents have walked to this strip for decades.

Another area of eastern Bensenville that was built to cater to airport workers was the area of Irving Park Road on the north, Green Street on the south, York Street on the west and O’Leary Drive on the east.  This area was the closest to the airport and residents were literally right next door to the airport.  Beginning in 1961, a series of townhouses was built on Hamilton Drive’s eastern side that was affordable housing for airport workers early in their careers.  Multiple restaurants, bars and other businesses were built along Green Street and Irving Park Road that served east Bensenville.

Gangs have been a part of Bensenville since at least 1957 and likely sooner.  Some Bensenville youths were wild and crazy greasers that got involved in some more serious crime and violent gang fights.  I am not sure if these gangs were around all through the 1960s but they were for sure around in the late 1950s and this is how it all began.  Bensenville also experienced crime from youths during this period.

In the year 1976, Bensenville allowed the construction of lower income apartment buildings in the community.  This construction would continue through the late 1970s, multiple locations were chosen for affordable apartments.  This soon attracted white, Hispanic and African American families from Chicago.  These apartments accepted section 8 vouchers which allowed low-income families to settle here.

Apartments were built along Irving Park Road near Route 83 right behind a Dunkin Donuts beginning in 1976 until 1977.  Apartments were also built near the intersection of Grand Avenue and York Street on the west side of York Street that could be accessed by Belmont Avenue.

Lower income Chicago families also moved into the townhouses on Hamilton Drive that intersected with Irving Park Road by the later 70s.  Low-income city families also settled the older apartments along David Drive by the later 70s.  O’ Hare pilots and stewardesses now moved out of these complexes and no longer found them interesting by the late 70s.

In the year 1979, the Imperial Gangsters street gang from Chicago discovered the O’ Hare suburbs and mainly settled in the suburb of Franklin Park but they also discovered Bensenville perhaps as far back as 1980 but for sure by 1982 the Imperial Gangsters had arrived and started a section on Hamilton Drive south of the basketball courts heading toward Green Street.  These Imperial Gangsters of Bensenville were branched out of the Franklin Park Imperial Gangsters or “The Jungle” Imperial Gangsters.  1983 Chicago Tribune articles about Bensenville gang activity stated the IGs had been here since at least 1982.  I strongly believe these Imperial Gangsters arrived and started a section in 1979 or 1980.  These Imperial Gangsters were started by “Tito” and his brother, both men are Puerto Rican.

The Latin Kings colonized O’Hare area before Imperial Gangsters arriving as far back as 1976 as they moved to Maywood, Melrose Park and Franklin Park. I am not positive on exactly when Latin Kings arrived in Bensenville, but it was by 1982 at the latest.  1983 Chicago Tribune articles confirmed Latin Kings arrived by 1982 at latest.  I strongly believe these Latin Kings started a section in 1979 or 1980.  These Latin Kings branched off the legendary Winona and Winthrop (Wild West) Latin Kings from the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago.  These Latin Kings moved into the apartments near Belmont and York Street which became a permanent Latin King stronghold.

The Harrison Gents moved to Bensenville in the early 80s as well onto northern Hamilton Drive, north of the basketball courts by 1982 at the latest.  The same Chicago Tribune articles from 1983 confirmed the Gents were there by 1982; therefore, 1982 was the latest possible year they started a section.  Some of these original Bensenville Gents were “Capone” and “Malo.”

In 1983, Bensenville police began pursuing Latin Kings, Harrison Gents and Imperial Gangsters.  At the time, the main war was between Imperial Gangsters and Latin Kings.  Both gangs would move up and down York Street attacking each other and spraying graffiti in their sections.  The Tribune reported on November 7, 1983, that they arrested a 16-year-old and 19-year-old gang member for inciting gang activity and recruiting.  The 19-year-old named was Juan Fuentes who was living out of his car.  Both gang members were convicted.  The newspaper did not mention what gangs these two belonged to, but I believe they were Harrison Gents because the Harrison Gents did not last long in Bensenville and were gone by about 1984.

There was also a racial battle in the suburb in the early 1980s into the mid-1980s as many long time mostly white youths were upset with the influx of Hispanic gangs from Chicago moving into the village.  These youths would venture to the town houses on Hamilton Drive (The Townies) and spray Nazi swasticas on walls with “white power” slogans, this was shown in the November 7, 1983, Tribune article and what is odd if the article did not point that out.  This may have been the motivating factor for these Chicago gangs to form in Bensenville to begin with.  There was much animosity in the suburbs from much of the mostly white community when Hispanic and African Americans began settling these suburbs in the early 1980s. Many Hispanic residents were treated as second class citizens by police and other public institutions, but the Hispanic youths got the worst treatment from youths in school.

Beginning in the autumn of 1982, the community and the police first identified Chicago gang activity as gang fights were witnessed in the streets.  When residents tried to call police, the gangs retaliated by breaking windows and slashing car tires.  Gangs would also break into homes and vehicles.  All this activity caused a lot of police activity that got many gang members put behind bars and many of them moved out of the community, especially the Harrison Gents.  It is possible the Harrison Gents made the most noise in the early 80s because the only info I found on them was these old newspapers, no one anywhere on the internet ever talks about them.

During the early 1980s years Spanish Cobra gang members slowly moved into the Hamilton Townhouses (Townies) and in about 1983 they formed a section there as the Harrison Gents departed the northern part of Hamilton Drive from the basketball courts to Irving Park Road.  These original Cobras were from the Cicero Ave and Armitage chapter of Spanish Cobras from the Belmont-Cragin neighborhood in Chicago.  These members were Lanny Garlock, Marco Hernandez, David Ortiz, Ian Gentry, Marshall and a legendary member named “Lil Bee.”  Latin Kings and Spanish Cobras soon developed an intense animosity as Latin Kings viewed Bensenville as their hood.

By the late 1980s the low-income apartments and the townies became dangerous areas to live in or even travel to.  Irving Park Road became a “ramming zone,” which meant gang members waited in vehicles for rival gang cars to pass by then chase them down and deliberately ram into them.  Once the rival car was immobilized the gang members would rush the vehicle and attack the occupants or even kill them.  Shootings became regular and often deadly as many gang members were killed in the late 80s and early 90s yet newspapers did not report this.  Much of this reason stems back to the early 80s when the heads of the local police, residents and teaching staff at Fenton High School were in denial about gangs.  This allowed the gangs to manifest by the late 80s.  Spanish Cobras and Latin Kings became giants in Bensenville during these years and had the most intense gang wars along the Green Street and Irving Park Road corridors.

Not only did Latin Kings, Spanish Cobras and to a lessor extent Imperial Gangsters grow by the late 80s, new gangs would colonize the suburb beginning in 1989 after an influx of many Chicago residents moving to multiple O’Hare suburbs simultaneously beginning in 1989.

In the apartments controlled by Latin Kings, Vice Lords and Four Corner Hustlers moved into those buildings to recruit African American youths but since the African American population was outnumbered by the white and Hispanic population in this complex the Vice Lords and 4s were smaller and perhaps were gone by the mid-1990s.  The complex was mainly Latin Kings.  The Two Six gang and Satan Disciples colonized this complex in the late 1980s and set up groups that numbered around a dozen members each at their peak around 1990.  The Satan Disciples were started by Victor Soto who had moved to Bensenville from West Chicago.

The Latin Lowcos car club along with the Latin Brothers of Belmont and Cicero Avenue in Chicago moved into the Townies in the late 1980s but both groups were gone by the end of the 1990s.  The Latin Brothers came here to the Townies because Spanish Cobras invited them as the Latin Brothers were their cousins.  This was only a bond between Armitage and Cicero Spanish Cobras and Belmont and Cicero Latin Brothers.  Cobras are Folks and Brothers are People but that did not stop them from being allies against Latin Kings and Imperial Gangsters.  In the early 1990s Spanish Cobras and Imperial Gangsters went to war in the city.

The Gangster Disciples arrived around 1989/90.  Rob Spinks, the nephew of legendary boxer Leon Spinks moved from Maywood and linked up with Jarrard Renfro and Jerome Renfro from the south side of Chicago. Jarrard Renfro was a Black Disciple. These kids were quite young at the time and perhaps pre-teens The three formed a section of Gangster Disciples in the village in the vicinity of Grand Avenue and David Drive as these GDs formed in the lower income apartments along David Drive under the blessing of “Ferris.” When the GDs started up the Four Corner Hustlers and Vice Lords moved into the David Drive apartments.  The Four Corner Hustlers and Vice Lords started out as more popular in 1989 when they moved into David Drive apartments than the GDs but within a few years the GDs would flip many of those Vice Lords and Four Corner Hustlers and by the mid-1990s it was mainly just GDs through that area and all the way up to George Street.  This southeast part of Bensenville is where much of the African American community lived.  These GDs joined in on the fight against Latin Kings and Orquestra Albanies from Elmhurst.  The Gangster Disciples were strong in this area until Rob Spinks was shot in Elmhurst at the Arby’s by OAs on December 19, 1996.  He was shot in the neck and paralyzed from the waist down.  Spinks would go on to compete in professional wheelchair basketball, he is the son of professional boxer Leon Spinks.  By 1999 the GDs left Bensenville.  The Grand and David territory was taken over in the early 2000s by the Maniac Latin Disciples that still hold the territory in present years.

The main war and the most violence centered around the Spanish Cobras and Latin Kings.  Multiple shootings were linked to this war that were covered up and underreported by Bensenville police. Many Bensenville residents tended to avoid the Irving Park and York area for fears they would be caught in gang conflict.  Violent fights that would escalate into shootings made Bensenville a living hell and soon a bad reputation was given to Bensenville as surrounding communities avoided the village entirely in the late 80s and early 90s.  If one was to drive into Bensenville from the north along York Street by Irving Park Road, massive Spanish Cobra gang murals could be seen painted on the walls with impressive art which terrified many that traveled into the community.  The Townies were also saturated with Spanish Cobra and Imperial Gangster graffiti. These years of terror were from 1989-1995.

On October the 24^th 1991, 15-year-old Justin Campos was hanging out with two of his friends joking around and having a good time on a Thursday night.  Justin was mentally getting ready to testify against members of the Latin Kings because Campos associated, but was not a member of, the Spanish Cobras.  Campos was helping testify about a gang fight at the Burger King at Addison Street and Irving Park Road in Bensenville earlier that year.  That Burger King had several fights between Cobras and Kings during those years.  Campos was set to testify the next day, but all those plans were cut short that night when Justin would become a victim of gang violence.  As the three boys were hanging out, a figure with a hood pulled over his head emerged from a nearby alley and once Campos saw him, he knew what was coming and ran like hell; however, the gunman still managed to fire two bullets into the young teen’s back.  Justin still ran to his home at 143 Garden Ave (now removed) but then collapsed in his yard and died (Chicago Tribune Art Barnum and Joseph Sjostrom, October 26, 1991).  After this murder all of Dupage county was in shock and incredible panic gripped not only the suburb of Bensenville but all of the Dupage county suburbs, especially the ones that had been having gang problems for a while.  Everyone was panicking because they were afraid that gangs would multiply into the hundreds or thousands in every Dupage county suburb.  The newspapers buzzed about the murder reporting on it frequently until the trial happened in 1992, and the young 18-year-old suspect was acquitted of the charges.  The reporting and revisiting of the murder continued until 1993.

The heavy amount of reporting on the Campos murder definitely caused the Bensenville police to step up their patrols and anti-gang policies, which resulted in the gangs having far less power and activity within that small section of the suburb.  On the downside, the frequent stories of that murder gave Bensenville a bad reputation to the point where people thought the whole neighborhood was rotten and dangerous.  The biggest fear was that a young teen that was not in a gang was slain which hit home for anyone that was not in a gang.  It was also scary that this kid tried to testify and was killed for it making many Du Page County area residents afraid to confront gang issues.

The police crackdowns took years to make a difference, and it was not until 1995 that they gained headway, and the village drama began to calm down.  During the late 1990s the village progressively slowed down gang activity.  In the midst of this the Maniac Latin Disciples began forming in the village and Surenos moved into the apartments by Route 83 and Irving Park Road behind Dunkin Donuts in 1998.  The apartments that Surenos claim became dirty, ran down and dangerous by the 1990s.  Delivery people have claimed every building smells like urine in the hallways even in recent years and it is because people do urinate in them.  This is low-income housing and is often a feared area in the village even presently.  At this time, I do not know who ran that complex before the Surenos arrived in 1998, perhaps Latin Kings?  Surenos went to war with Imperial Gangsters and Latin Kings.  In one incident an Imperial Gangster named Mario Castillo stabbed a Sureno named Jesus Remirez with a steak knife and killed him September 8, 2002, he was charged and sentenced.

In the year 2005 O’Hare Airport received approval to demolish the portion of the community where Justin Campos was killed and where the Townies once stood.  This is the area of Irving Park Road on the north, Green Street on the south, York Street on the west and O’Leary Street on the east.  O’Leary, Hamilton, Dierks, Orchard, Green Lawn, Garden Avenues were all shut down and abandoned by the end of the 2000s.  All the businesses in this area were shut down. Up until the early 2010s the area was a sitting ghost town which was spooky to say the least.  Many residents lost their homes, and the Spanish Cobras left the community completely in the mid-2000s.  Imperial Gangsters were moved elsewhere in the community and remain an active gang but are very scarce to find.  Heavy duty gangbanging also caused the Cobras to burn out of the area as too many incarcerations and retirement brought their dominance to an end.  Latin Kings suffered a similar fate but still have a small, mostly hidden presence in the community in recent years.  Any activity from Latin Kings, Imperial Gangsters, Maniac Latin Disciples and Surenos is hidden and hard to find.  Bensenville massively cleaned up and is not the same as the 1990s.   Bensenville gang life of the 1980s and 1990s will never be forgotten and was the first Du Page County suburb to be crazy and the still is the record craziest gang infested Du Page County suburb in history, but you will no longer find that in Bensenville these days.

I am going to give credit to Mikie DA Poet for his YouTube videos about Bensenville.  Much of my detailed info on the late 80s through the 2000s comes from his Bensenville videos as he grew up in this suburb as a youth and graphically recalls the gangs here.  Check out his videos for detailed chilling stories that I did not write for more details.  His videos are appreciated!