(Untitled)
I'm in a crappy, negative mood that I just can't snap out of today. Can't think of a good reason why - maybe it's just the consistently cloudy weather? I do find it a lot harder to get started when there's no sun in the morning (or the rest of the day for that matter). SD is famous for its "May Gray" and "June Gloom," so I guess I better get
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VINDICATION!
The police officer -- a.k.a. `The Rat'
Mike Conklin
Published November 8, 2005
In 22 years as a Chicago cop, Ben Celano earned a nickname: The Rat. "Yeah, like in Alley Rat," he said. "I didn't mind. I spent enough time in alleys, that's for sure."
Celano worked his entire career in the 15th District on the West Side, in an area known as "the island," bordered by the Eisenhower Expressway, Oak Park, Cicero and an industrial complex.
The 15th is a "working district," as cops call any high-crime district, and Celano's beat was the principal war zone for rival gangs. He estimates nearly 75 percent of his time was spent in alleys, looking in garages, cultivating informants, getting abandoned cars towed and making pinches.
"Lots of times on nights, you'd stumble on some bad guys stripping a car and it could get wild," he said. "They'd take off running, and you'd start chasing. The trick was to drive with your lights off, then you or your partner could sneak around and be there when they started running. I loved doing that."
In 2004, there were 10,150 arrests made in Chicago alleys, an increase from the 9,747 in 2003. This was a small percentage of the total arrests made in those years (244,193 and 238,961, respectively), but Celano argues it's an important battleground.
"If you take alleys away from the bad guys, it helps the neighborhood a lot," he said. "The alley's like an avenue for most criminals, especially burglars."
Celano targeted abandoned cars and buildings, especially garages, as magnets for trouble. This is where criminals typically hid anything they didn't want to have in their possession if arrested.
He averaged at least one towed car per week and encouraged residents to have deserted buildings in alleys razed.
"That stuff's for vagrants, pure and simple," he said. "The city will take care of it, but you have to work through the process with them. It can be long and slow, but it gets done. I also looked for graffiti. The gangs actually advertised their presence for me with their tags. I mean how stupid is that?"
His eyes always lighted up, he said, whenever he came upon a pair of shoes tied together by shoestrings and suspended from telephone wires -- a signal that drugs were for sale in the immediate area.
"We had this stretch of alley that was like a drug drive-through. Suburban yuppies would pull off the Ike, swing through it, make a buy, get back on the expressway and head for home.
"When I'd see those shoes, I'd hang around to scare everyone away. I'd call 311, and they'd come out with this cherrypicker to take them down. I was always tempted to shoot 'em down, but you couldn't do that."
Celano, 62, retired two years ago. But to this day, it's difficult for him to pass an alley without a quick glance for trouble. "Twenty-two years on the force, and you develop habits hard to shake," he said.
Copyright © 2005, Chicago Tribune
Proved me so foolishly wrong...Wonder what pink glasses and an arrow mean? Dance Party?
cheer up, buttercup and then send some my way :)
jenjer
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