Mayor Van Dusen Reacts To Skokie's Crime Concerns

"We are only as strong as weakest link. Crime has the potential to be that weakest link," she said. 

Alen Takhsh, a Skokie resident and attorney, said his family, a Christian minority in Iran, arrived in Skokie in 1992 and said it was "the refuge my heart longed for." He said he's worried about what he perceives as an increasing crime rate, fears for his mother when she goes on her daily walks, and wants today's children to grow up in the same innocent, carefree Skokie he enjoyed.

Pete Baker, a Skokie resident, said that lately he has observed a lot of litter, a lot of noise, motorcycles at 2 a.m. and gotten the impression that Skokie's sense of community is waning.

He said that, having lived in New York City and Washington, D.C., he thinks of the "broken windows" theory of crime--which states that if a neighborhood has a lot of broken windows and looks disheveled, crime more easily takes root there. Conversely, neighborhoods which are kept up, and filled with neighbors actively seeking to hold up standards, fare better.

He asked the village to conduct outreach on the crime/safety issue to groups, hold a town hall meeting so residents can talk about their concerns, and make sure police have the resources they need.

Kathy McKay, who lives in the same building as Takhsh's mother at Niles Center Road and Church Street, said people used to run on the track at neighboring Old Orchard Junior High at midnight, but now it has become "scary."

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She said she called police on Aug. 11 because a group of 10 women and two men were fighting outside her building. 

"They were two different pimps, bringing girls in and fighting over turf," she said. She called police, who broke up the fight.

She said she learned that the fracas had been classified as an "event," rather than an "incident," in police reports, meaning it was not part of the statistics.

Mayor Van Dusen's response

Van Dusen made a number of points in response:

• Assuring the residents the village has a town hall meeting in the works, and will begin planning it Thursday (Sept. 19).
• Raising the police force from 110 officers to 114, which he said was authorized during budget talks.
• Doing an efficiency study of the police department, to see if officers should be deployed in a different fashion.
• The village has authorized the police department to purchase a mobile command unit. "It will show very publicly the police presence," Van Dusen said.

Van Dusen also restated a point he has made in the past: that crime is down in Skokie. When a resident cited the flood of police reports, he responded, "I’m talking about type A crime-- felony.  

"That’s down significantly. We’ve pushed the arrest and conviction of anybody we can apprehend, and the record of our department is actually very good.

"You will have one or two major incidents every year; it’s a region-wide problem every municipality confronts." 

Patch will continue to report on this issue.