In cooperation with the 8th Police District’s effort to combat gang activity in the Archer Heights community, and to show police support of not only the Archer Heights Civic Association’s (AHCA) ongoing efforts to combat all types of crime, but to also show support of all law abiding residents of the entire Archer Heights neighborhood, a formal police roll-call was held on Friday, April 21st at 7:00 PM, on 49th Street at Kostner Avenue where 49th Street dead-ends at Archer Park. This roll-call, near the site of a deadly gang shooting, was staged to reassure our residents that the police are there for us.
For this roll-call, the AHCA worked very busily contacting the leadership of various community, school, church, fraternal and sports groups, inviting them to attend and to spread the word among their members. Our outreach extended to hundreds of families in our neighborhood, and we strongly urged all Archer Heights community residents and their children to attend to demonstrate that gang activity will not be tolerated in our neighborhood. We had a respectable turnout; but we didn’t get the large crowd that we’d hoped for. Extremely disappointing—certain individuals, very vocal about gang activity, did not carve out a mere thirty minutes from their lives and failed to show up to this important event.
Archer Park is a heavily used, family oriented recreational facility that our civic association pushed hard the Chicago Park District to build in the 1940s. The AHCA then conducted a rigorous grass-roots campaign to get the field house built in the 1970s. It is the jewel park facility in our neighborhood that historically has been a safe haven where children could play, teens could enjoy sports, and families and adults could walk about without fear; and that’s what the AHCA wants to preserve. So more of our neighborhood families should have shown up. Nonetheless, the regular beat officers, including 8th District Commander Ronald Pontecore, Watch Captains, Sergeants, Tactical & Mission Car Police arrived and stayed a while to discuss our concerns about the shooting activity that seems to be increasing throughout the entire city and has unfortunately touched our neighborhood. It was awesome to see so many police assemble at one time and the roll-call was an invaluable opportunity for our residents to interact directly with the officers that patrol our community for the third shift that begins at 7:00 PM. The more people get to know our police officers; the safer and better Archer Heights will be.
As AHCA gets word of these events, we will share to our Facebook page and the Events tab on this site – however, we do need help spreading the word and making sure that people attend. Please make every effort to help us in our ongoing endeavors to keep the Archer Heights community close-knit and communicating with each other.
Additionally, despite some negative talk, the increased police presence in the neighborhood is a good thing; it’s a direct result of a dedicated group of people regularly voicing concerns in our area and calling 911, which leads to the city deploying more police. In order to keep that momentum, it’s important to stay in contact with the police, and each other, so that information is widely available and can be quickly addressed.
To that end, our ongoing efforts to partner with CAPS (Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy) continue each month. Join us on the first Wednesday of each month,
at 7:00 PM sharp. The meetings take place at St. Bruno School, in the St. Joseph room – they were sparsely attended, but have recently been growing. We need our fellow neighbors to get involved…and stay involved.
Special thanks to swchicagopost.com for the photos.