| Settled by | Provide info | |
|---|---|---|
| Year infiltrated | 1986 | |
| Crime impact | Part | |
| Worst areas | Byron Avenue on the north, Army Trail Boulevard on the south, Addison Road on the east, Mill Road on the west |
|
| Suburban projects | None |
The suburb of Addison is indeed a community with a very diverse income class population. If you travel through this community, you will find high income lavish upper middle class to upper class houses placed within brand spanking new subdivisions, or you can find older more modest houses that are accompanied by the lower middle class and the working-class population. Then you have the renting population that resides in the many apartment complexes within the suburb. You will find high class luxury apartments and condos then you will find older more modest apartments that are often section 8 friendly. Over the years Addison has had a bad reputation which has caused many people to think twice before renting or purchasing houses in the suburb, but it is foolish to completely discriminate against the entire community because of a few troubled areas that are mainly within certain apartment complexes. People that have lived in Addison their whole lives will tell you that there are certain areas to watch out for in this community, but most of the town is a safe and clean community. In this chapter we will investigate the history of Addison street gangs and investigate which areas gangs have resided in the past and presently.
The area now known today as Addison was first settled by Hezekiah Dunklee and Mason Smith who both came from the east coast to settle these lands on September 3rd, 1833. The men settled near Salt Creek which is in the center of Addison which is also the earliest settlement in the village. Soon after the two men arrived, other German families came and settled the area until the settlement became known as Dunklee’s Grove in 1839. In the year 1884 the village of Addison was officially incorporated.
In the 1950s, Addison was subdivided, and many new houses were built in each subdivision that included Green Meadows Estates that began construction in 1955 and would continue until 1969. We will mainly focus on the apartment complexes because that is where most of the gang activity in the past and present occurred.
Apartment construction on the toughest apartment complexes started in the year 1962 when the Green Meadows Apartments were built that spun off the Green Meadows Estates houses. These apartments were built between 1962-1968. Green Meadows is in the area of Elizabeth Drive on the north, Green Meadow Drive on the south, Valerie Lane on the east and the Jewel Osco shopping center on the west.
In the same cluster as Green Meadows is the Michael Lane apartments which are located right on Michael Lane. Up to Rozanne Drive-in low-rise apartments, then once you get past Rozanne is multi-level apartments along Lincoln Avenue until you reach the Chablis apartments. Lincoln Avenue is cut due to Lake Street and schools that divide both parts of Lincoln Ave. Between Rozanne and Valerie Lane, one side of the street is the low rises on the other side is houses. These apartments were built between 1962-1964.
South of the schools that divide Lincoln Avenue is a continuation of Lincoln Avenue which is south of Army Trail Boulevard. Along this street is multi-level apartments that were built in 1971-1972. These apartments are along Lincoln Avenue from Church Street to Dale Drive then continue down Dale Drive. Dale Drive apartments are older and were built between 1966-1971; therefore, the Lincoln Avenue and Park apartments seem to be an extension but the Lincoln Ave apartments are a different design.
On Mill Road and Green Oaks Court is the Green Oaks apartments. This is a horseshoe shaped cul-de-sac with smaller and larger apartment buildings. These were built between 1969-1974. The legendary apartments stretch along Mill Road from Army Trail Boulevard to Lake Street.
The last of the legendary apartments is the present-day College Park Apartments, formerly known as the Swift Common Apartments, that were built at Swift Road and College Drive in 1974. These are larger buildings with several apartments.
All these apartment complexes were likely built for young couples and/or O’Hare Airport workers in their early career. All these apartments were likely desirable in the 1960s and 1970s because they were decent and affordable.
One might wonder why hardened Chicago street gangs found their way into this quiet Du Page County suburb. By the year 1986, the only Chicago gang activity in Du Page county was in Bensenville, but even that gang activity had not become severe prior to 1986. So what happened? Well, I found old articles from 1989 describing Chicago gang activity, mainly graffiti since 1989 by the Lincoln Avenue apartments. I did some digging, mainly using Redfin via Google searches looking up the sale dates of many apartment buildings at all these sites. I was surprised to find a sale pattern for all of them. Green Oaks, Green Meadows, Michael Lane, Lincoln Ave, Swift Common all had several buildings first sold beginning in 1986 through 1991. Very few buildings were sold prior to 1986. This shows these properties were valued in the 60s, 70s and the earlier 1980s. By the mid-80s the apartments may not have been doing so well as they aged and young people began looking elsewhere for housing. It appears that same crooked landlords and/or government housing scooped these properties up between 1986-1991 and this just so happens to be exactly when gangs from Chicago infiltrated the village, seems more than a coincidence.
When apartment buildings first went up for sale in 1986 the Almighty Latin Kings from Chicago moved into the village the same exact year and started a chapter out here. The Latin Kings were first and street legends can back that up. In 1986, according to a 1988 Chicago Tribune article about Addison gangs, police were suddenly dealing with excessive graffiti that building administrator John Black believed was done by one person. It could be possible one person did it but that covered up the actual gang issue. These original Addison Latin Kings had no other Chicago gangs to fight so they likely fought Spanish Cobras and Imperial Gangsters from Bensenville. There were Latin Kings in Bensenville since at least the early 80s and now they were in Bensenville. I mentioned several buildings sold off between 1986-1991 in all the apartment complexes, well, it might interest you to know that those landlords did not last in the village. I found a pattern of these buyers buying the buildings between 86-91 then selling them off between 1992 into the early 2000s. The pattern stood out to me, and I could not ignore it. One of the big reasons Chicago gangs like the Latin Kings come to communities is to deal with rising crime, crooked landlords and racism toward recently migrating Hispanic people from the city. I was told this by big time Latin Kings that colonized the suburbs in the 70s and 80s, they fought against crews and cliques of mostly white kids that hated them. It is a fact that these apartment complexes declined in the late 80s and early 90s, and there you have it, crooked landlords swooped in and bought these and left them to rot. Just like in Chicago, when landlords neglect neighborhoods gangs move in to deal with the chaos…or at least at first they do. The drugs, guns and killing comes later. At that point in time, even if the crooked landlord sells the property, it is already too late, the gang is already rooted in the community. I don’t know this for a fact, but I can almost bet Addison PD cut back patrols in these complexes, likely because they had biases toward the citizens, hell this was the 80s, times were different. It is also a fact that suburban police were racist as could be back then, but I just don’t know if that applied to Addison in particular. Anyway, back to the Tribune article from 1988. Officials told the paper that the gang activity was along Lincoln Avenue from Army trail Road to Addison Road in the apartments. Officials said the graffiti was heavy in 1986 then died down until it flared back up in 1988 in the same area and this time, they finally translated it as gang graffiti in 1988. The Village struggled to keep up with graffiti, when they cleaned it up, taggers painted right over it. As I read the article, they downplayed it heavily but from the street stories I heard, the Latin Kings of Addison were heavily active, so it doesn’t add up. Residents were complaining that gangs were moving in and reported seeing older hardcore members coming in from the city in 1988, but public officials and police were quick to quash those fears making it seem like gangs were not a big deal. The best action the Addison P.D. did was step up patrols to put down graffiti artists in that summer of 1988 and creating a gang crimes task force which only included two officers in plain clothes that began in 1987 (Chicago Tribune, Timothy Bryers, June 22, 1988).
The sale of apartment buildings was significant in 1986-1988 but not heavy. The heavier sales of the buildings took off in 1989 into 1990 and this just so happens to be when more Chicago gangs infiltrated the village. Crooked landlords and/or subpar housing authority/section 8 programs were the ones possibly buying all these apartments. I kept seeing “part of multi-unit sales” during these years which tells me a big slum lord, or the Housing Authority got these. This doesn’t mean single buildings sold during this time were not owned by crooked landlords. This was an uncertain time in the village where rental property was down and regulations were not enforced or created yet; Furthermore, slum lords don’t care who lives in their buildings, they will let in criminals, hardened gangsters or anything else. The apartments were also much more affordable for impoverished families from Chicago and for section 8 programs to assist now that the buildings had aged. This is problematic for the village, for the impoverished migrating citizens and even for the gangs. The gangs often arrive to put a stop to such criminals but end of conflicting with each other in time. This appears to be what happened in Addison in the late 80s and early 90s and by 1989, crime and gang issues were full blown and had become dangerous. By the year 1989, the Addison police department stepped up their game by holding monthly gang intelligence-sharing meetings, and the principle at Addison Trail High School began cracking down on gang activity by handing out stronger disciplinary action for gang activity in school (Chicago Tribune, Neil Mehler, October 17, 1989). This article showed that gangs were now a major problem within a one-year span. The 1988 article said all was well and there were just mild troublemakers, now in 1989, they needed meetings and school processes, HA! This all coincides with the sudden sale of several apartment buildings between 1989-1991. Now let’s look at each gang that was here and the hoods.
As I said, the first gang to arrive were Latin Kings in 1986, by 1989, they built up enough forces to not only become big at Addison Trail Junior High and Addison Trail High School, the Latin Kings crossed through the school yards and landed at Lincoln Ave and Michael Lane and took over Michael Lane apartments in 1989. They were joined by an allied street gang from Melrose Park known at the time as the Los Be Be Kings (now Los Be Be Stones). The two gangs hung out as pals in all the alleyways and up and down the block. Both gangs were People alliance allies. I saw many records of many of these buildings being sold for the first time between 1986-1991. Michael Lane became a legendary block for decades and it all began in 1989. The Lincoln and Park area apartments were heavily sold between 1985-1990 while the Dale Drive apartments were heavily sold between 1987-1992.
A storm hit Addison hard in 1989 when the legendary Aurora and Chicago Insane Deuces arrived that had just begun a fresh war with People alliance allies the Latin Kings. Insane Deuces aggressively took over the Green Meadows and Mill Road apartments in 1989 and became Addison’s newest threat. Green Meadows heavily sold between 1986-1989 while Mill Road apartments sold heavily between 1986-1990. The Deuces also heavily colonized the Stevens Drive apartments nearby. Once again this would usher in either crooked slum lords and/or the Housing Authority. These areas became free-for-alls and became dangerous. The Deuces were mainly trying to do what Latin Kings were doing, protect the neighborhood but were quickly distracted by a evolving war with Latin Kings that intensified by 1990. In 1992, the Deuces switched alliances to the Folks, and this brought even more hate between these two mobs. It is pretty safe to say that Latin Kings and Insane Deuces ran Addison back in those days.
In the very large Swift Common apartments, multiple sales of buildings began in 1986 until through 1990 and it just so happened that the Four Corner Hustlers and Mafia Insane Vice Lords moved into these buildings in 1989 right at the height of the building sales. These apartments were multi-racial with white, Hispanic and African American residents. I am not sure why no Hispanic gangs started here and if they did they were small, it was mainly the land of 4s and MIVLs. I was told by those that lived it that these were confirmed to be section 8 friendly apartments. The apartments were described by the same sources as wild, fun filled, party places where residents drank and got high day and night and were outside all day and night and it would sometimes results in fights and shootings, mostly gang related. These apartments very quickly became know to be dangerous once the gangs arrived in 1989.
In 1990, gang violence was increasing, and membership was growing rapidly which caused the Addison police department to be quite busy in their fight against the gangs. In order to help fight the gangs Addison public officials allowed an anti-gang policy that would permit temporary detaining of any person wearing known gang colors, emblems or other gang insignia, flashing gang signs and if the officers have probable cause that the person is about to commit a crime or has already committed a crime. The policy also allows the police to search gang members for weapons during detainment if they feel threatened. This policy came about because residents were complaining about not feeling safe to walk the streets anymore due to an abundance of gang activity. By the end of the summer in 1990 the Addison police had already taken down some key leaders of two gangs who were starting to have feuds and were on the brink of war according to a 1990 Chicago Tribune article (Chicago Tribune, Annemarie Mannion, September 13, 1990). The article did not name the two gangs but I can tell you without a doubt they meant Latin Kings and Insane Deuces.
In the year 1991, the Latin Kings and Los Be Be Kings went to war and this brought more gang violence on Michael Lane. Once close allies, now the two were beating each other up on the streets and shooting at each other, this intensified Addison’s gang violence.
In the year 1992, the Insane Deuces switched alliance to the Folk alliance which caused an uproar all over the Chicago area; however, I do not think it affected the war with Latin Kings since they already hated each other. The switching of alliances did, however, stop the war the Deuces had with Spanish Cobras from Bensenville as they both became tight allies teaming up on Latin Kings. In the same year members of the Latin Counts Chicago gang moved onto Michael Lane. Although the Counts were People alliance, they already had a nasty war with Latin Kings and this war was much worse than the war between Los Be Bes and Latin Kings. Residents in the area now witnessed a terrifying war with guns blazing and bodies dropping. Latin Kings and Latin Counts were both trying to take over Addison and Villa Park and both suburbs were rocked by this war. The Latin Counts likely battled with Isane Deuces as well.
In 1993, the Latin Counts now had a real and strong and fully established presence on Michael Lane as they recruited several youths in the area and they would only keep growing. The Addison Latin Counts became feared.
The gang problems in Addison continued to escalate in the early 1990s in the village, but luckily there were no reported homicides, I emphasize no REPORTED homicides. It is without a doubt there were multiple homicides but since those were gang on gang killings suburban police like to cover those things up from the community to prevent white flight or any other form of middle-class flight.
Addison’s hey day of out of control gang issues would begin to early stages of devolving in 1994 when the 15-year-old Isane Deuce gang member named Javier Ureste accidentally shot and killed 20-year-old Teresa Venegas in a gang crossfire as she was sitting on a porch holding her baby in her arms. This was the first non-gang member to be killed by a gang member in Addison and since it involved the shooting of a woman holding her baby, it caused outrage. The shooting took place June 17, 1994 and a hefty prison sentence was dealt to Ureste. (Chicago Tribune, Tom Pelton, February 18, 1995). After this happened, the Addison police swarmed the Insane Deuces and vowed to take them down. In Villa Park the police did the same against this dominating mob.
Also, In 1994, Addison police busted in on a major drug conspiracy operation in the Swifton Common Apartments (pictured) on College Road right near the Interstate 355 expressway. 17 grown men and women in their 20s and 30s were taken down including one 13-year-old girl who had been selling crack cocaine for them. The bust came after residents complained of several young men hanging out in doorways all the time and people constantly were coming in and out of the building, when police arrived, police then discovered a crack den within these apartments (Chicago Tribune, Andrew Gottesman, February 18, 1994). It is crazy to think a functioning crack den was in these buildings and this further proves that drugs flowed freely in these buildings. Access to the 355 expressway was ideal for these gangs to make money. I am not even sure if these groups partook in the local gang wars because they seemed solely focused on making money.
In the year 1995, Los Be Be Kings left Addison permanently leaving Michael Lane to the Counts. Latin Kings also moved off of Michael Lane and the Counts became stronger. The Insane Deuces were either severely weakened by 1995 or completely eradicated by Addison police and never returned. Latin Kings and Latin Counts continued a violent gang war to finish the 1990s decade, but the violence and gang presence was heavily suppressed because of the hard work of Addison police. The war would continue into the 2000s decade but was more sporadic than before when gangs did as they pleased. Addison police now had advanced law enforcement measures to keep the violence minimal.
When looking at the Redfin records for the apartment buildings in Addison I couldn’t help but notice that many buildings were being sold once again heavily in the later 1990s starting with 1995 continuing through the early 2000s. Some buildings never sold in the late 80s and early 90s then suddenly sold in the later 90s and earlier 2000s. This says to me that the village cracked down on slumlords and section 8 missteps pushing out dirty landlords from the village. In 2005 Swift Common was rehabbed and renamed College Park Apartments as Four Corner Hustlers and Mafia Insane Vice Lords exited the village permanently.
Addison has become a much safer community since the 1989-1995 wildest days, but the historic gangbanging should not be forgotten. Latin Kings and Latin Counts continue to have a minor presence in the community and the notorious La Raza street gang arrived in the Michael Lane area by the late 2000s but have learned to assimilate into this community. Gangs in Addison still operate but are much quieter and harder to find which makes this community fairly safe.