REPRESSION AND RESISTANCE IN CHICAGO'S PUBLIC HOUSING

    On October 29, 1996, a crowd of nearly 500 people packed the
Malcolm X College auditorium. Most were Black women from the
various Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) projects across the city
who came for a rally to protest the war being waged on people
living in public housing.
    In October, the CHA recieved close to $70 million in HUD funds
to demolish 11 high-rise buildings at three public housing
developments. On October 11, a sudden six-day eviction notice was
given to residents at the Jane Addams homes. On October 24, a
federal lawsuit was filed by the Cabrini-Green Local Advisory
Council against the CHA's efforts to demolish eight buildings
under the HOPE VI plan, with only 300 very-low-income units built
to replace the 1,300 units destroyed.  On October 7 and again on
October 28  police launched "drug" raids on resident apartments at
Horner Homes, Cabrini-Green, and Wentworth Gardens.
    The rally was called by a coalition of local Black
politicians, the Central and Local tenant Advisory Councils and
other organizations. A conference was later held on October 31,
and a march on Chicago's City Hall set for November 18.
    The following is a closer look at two of the attacks on public
housing residents - the threatened evictions at Jane Addams, and
the raids at Horner Homes and Wentworth Gardens.

              EVICTION THREAT AT JANE ADDAMS HOMES

    "They're using these things to clear the land so that they can
bring in the "nice" suburban people, so that they can bring all
the Black folks out.  They're trying to "fumigate" the projects so
they can get who they want in there." - young woman at CHA
residents' rally

    On Friday, October 12, 61 families living in Jane Addams Homes
were told they had six days to pack their bags and move out.  This
surprise annoucement was delivered by Chicago Housing Authority
officials at a meeting with the residents of this west side
development.
    The officials claimed that they were forced to take these
steps because a federal housing court had imposed a $200 a day
fine due to the poor condition of their buildings.  It was simply
out of their hands. Residents didn't buy that, and charged that it
was part of a CHA plan to demolish all of Jane Addams and lease
the land to private developers.
    In fact, back in September, the CHA admitted to residents
their plans to remove all 1,000+ units at Jane Adams and lease the
land to a private developer.  $150,000 townhomes would be built on
the rubble, with 20% of the units supposedly being set aside for
CHA residents.  Residents were assured that it would take three to
six months to carry out the relocations to "scattered site" and
Section 8 housing.
    While the CHA justified this with their usual rhetoric of
building a mixed income community, some other reasons seemed more
realistic.  ABLA - a grouping of five CHA developments, including
Jane Addams - is located very close to both the Univesity of
Illinois's Chicago campus and the high priced housing that's been
going up in the "University Village" area.  Developers have even
tried to buy and demolish some middle-class private homes in the
area - to clear out a site for expensive townhomes.  In their
view, the residnents of Jane Addams simply are another obstacle to
their money making.
    On October 15, residents gave their response to the eviction
with a press conference, followed by a protest two days later.  A
group - Concerned Residents of ABLA - was formed as well.  Some
local Black politicians also gave their public support for the
residents.  As the deadline approached, a court issued a ruling
that postponed the issuance of eviction notices for 30 days.
     According to one activist resident, almost half of those who
were given notices have still been moved out.  Fear was a big
motivator - one young woman with a child, who had spent three
years living in a car and stealing candy bars for food, was
terrified of being put back out in the street. Yet already many of
those who were sent to the supposedly rehabbed high rise
apartments have made complaints about faulty electricity and
flooding.
    To challenge the CHA's claim that the Addams Homes buildings
are in such terrible shape, lawyers for the residents have
recently conducted their own inspection of Jane Addams.  The
results of this will have been brought back to court on November
1.
    At this point, the issue is far from being settled, and it has
contributed to a good deal of anger among residents.  In the words
of one activist: "We're being pawns in this episode.  I may still
have to move - but some truths are going to come out. People have
been lied to for so long.  We've been cheated for so long."

                      PUBLIC HOUSING RAIDS

    "The police just put out this story that they had all these
warrants they had all these indictments.  They had none of these
things.  They came in and just took people. If you complained they
took you.  If they didn't like the look of your suit, they took
you.  They are beating people every single day on CHA property.
For nothing.  People who go to work every single day.  Teenage
boys who go to school every day....they're getting beat, theyre
getting arrested, they're getting taken away for nothing." - young
woman at CHA residents' rally

    They came in like a swarm of locusts. Kicking and banging on
doors. Shoving people to the floor. Residents subjected to verbal
and physical abuse. Weapons waved and guns put to the heads of
even the littlest children. When this mob was finished with it's
mission, dozens' of families homes were torn apart, lives
disrupted, and now face the prospect of being thrown out on the
street.
    Calling the cops for protection against this group of thugs
would be pointless - they were the cops, more specifically a
combined task force of police that included Chicago Housing and
Chicago city cops, DEA, FBI and others. The raids were given
catchy titles - "Operation Blue Thunder" for Horner (63 residents
arrested) and "Operation Stormy Monday" for Cabrini-Green,
Stateway Gardens and Wentworth Gardens (79 arrests).
    The authorities portrayed the raids as attempts to rescue
residents form the scourge of drugs and gangs. To many residents,
however, the raids were merely another way to movie low income
Black families out of areas targeted for development.  Even though
no drugs were found in their apartments, a number of residents
have already recieved 10-day eviction notices.
    What follows is a small sampling of stories told by residents
of their own experience during the raids. In most  cases, people's
names have been changed, to avoid possible further harassment by
the authorities.

                "OPERATION BLUE THUNDER" - HORNER

    At 5am, the police banged on Mae Johnson's apartment door.
Immediately after she let them in, the cops put a gun to her head,
threw her to the ground and kicked Mae in her back. She is 63, and
a diabetic with a bad heart. Her questions were cut short with a
threat, "If you don't shut up muthafucka I will shoot you."
    Her son is dragged out of his bedroom butt naked, slammed into
a window, and cuffed. He is charged with selling drugs - a false
charge according to Mae.
    Hours later, Mae and her family are attacked again upon
leaving the managment office. She went there to get information to
make a complaint against the cops. After police slam one son into
a car, they shove Mae to the ground. She lands face first, blacks
out momentarily, and comes to with a policeman's leg between her
back. She is cuffed, charged with disorderly conduct and together
with another son, hauled off to jail.

    On September 15th, Cynthia Wallace's estranged husband was
taken in for questioning by the police during a sweep. He had been
over by her CHA building doing what he does for a living - fixing
a car. Having no answers to their queries about drugs and gangs,
a photo is taken of him, and he is released. When the raids come
two weeks later, he was charged with delivering drugs and hauled
to jail. No sooner is he brought to a Chicago police station than
the cops state that it's a mistake and drop the charges. It should
have been cased closed, yet little more than two weeks after the
raid, Cynthia recieved an ten-day eviction notice from the
management of Horner Homes.

    Gail Johnson's son was arrested on a drug charge, which she
knows is a frame up.  "You can get a thousand dope fiends and
they'll tell you that my son don't sell drugs."  The police had
come by her apartment at 9:00, long after the early morning raids
at Horner should have been done with.  So she was surprised when
some cops started banging on her door.  They were looking for her
son, Tony.  Someone busted earlier in the morning dropped his name
to the police.  "Where the drugs and guns at," demanded the
police, "come on, where the drugs at." Nobody was dressed, and
unlike many of the other raids, thee police allowed Gail, her son
and his girlfriend to all get dressed.  Odd, she thought, if they
truly suspected people of having a big stash of drugs.  The cops
searched through the whole apartment and found nothing.  They went
through her son's car - nothing again.  The cops left.
    Ten minutes later, the police were back again.  This time with
more attitude and their guns drawn.  "Hey, what's going on" Gail
asked.  "You know the fuck what's going on" replied the police as
they shoved her son on the bed, cuffed him, and marched him out
the door and up the stairs.  "They didn't mirandize him" noted
Gail.  Puzzled why he wasn't being taken down to the station, she
tried to follow. "You better carry your ass down the stairs,"
warned the police.  Five minutes later her son was brought back,
along with a safe, bags of drugs and money. As Gail pointed out,
none of this was found in her apartment, the only evidence linking
it to her son was the word of a known drug dealer.
    Three weeks later Gail recieved her ten day eviction notice.

    "Get your muthafucking hands up.  Don't move.  Sit right
there."  This was the greeting Marcy Morris got from a Chicago
housing Authority cop as she walked into the front room of her
apartment at half-past four in the morning.  Moments before, her
daughter's friend Anthony had let the five police in.  Now the
place was being searched and her family threatened.  A gun was
pointed at Anthony.  Another gun was pointed at Marcy's kids and
grand kids who were in the apartment.  When her teen-age son
protested, a copy barked, "Shut the fuck up before we take your
fucking ass."
    Marcy was pissed off.  "Y'all can put your guns and sticks
up," she told the cops, "y'all ain't got to come in my house like
that."  Though police asserted they had a warrant, nothing was
shown.  She intended to call the Chicago police department to find
out what was going on. The cops in the apartment wouldn't allow
it.  "You ain't fittin to touch this muthafucking phone," one
remarked.
    They accused her 23-year-old daughter Dana of selling a a few
dollars worth of drugs to an undercover cop.  "She don't sell
drugs to nobody" said Marcy, explaining that her daughter just
goes to school, picks up her kids and goes home.  Dana was
arrested, and cuffed, and taken to jail.  Before she left, her
brother was able to at least put her shoes on her barefeet.
    Three weeks later, Marcy got a ten-day eviction notice.

    Carol Dawkins was one of the few residents who had no
complaints about police behavior.  According to her, they were
polite and didn't tear up the apartment.  At 5:30 that morning,
police from Chicago Housing and the DEA had come to her apartment
looking for her grandson.  They accused him of selling drugs.
They searched the apartment, found nothing, and said that she
should inform the CHA's legal department of that fact.  Shouldn't
be any trouble, they added.  So Carol did as they suggested and
made the call.  Three weeks later she received her eviction
notice.

    When the police came to Wanda Smith's apartment, she was busy
getting her seven year old ready for school.  Bam, bam, bam went
the apartment door, and a voice, "Open the mutherfucking door."
Not knowing what was going on, Wanda told them she didn't call
them, she wasn't even fully dressed and wasn't going to open the
door.  They threatened to knock it down.  She let them in.
    Two female and one male cop searched the apartment. Their
hands on their guns, they looked in each of her children's
bedrooms.  When Wanda went to retrieve her ID from under her
pillow, one cop cautioned, "watch out she might have a gun."
    As it turned out, Wanda's name wasn't even on the list that
the police were using.  "We're not looking for you" they informed
her and left.  One cop felt the need to make a smart remark.  That
was the last straw for Wanda.  "Kiss my ass and get the fuck out,"
she replied and closed the door.

    "It was if I was dreaming." was Brenda Robinson's reaction to
the early morning police raid on her apartment.  Woken by the
sound of sledgehammers on her apartment door, she barely managed
to get the door open before the police knocked it off it's
hingers.  Seven cops rushed in, their guns drawn.
    One cop was Secret Service.  One had FBI on his jacket.  They
were black and white and included one open racist who told Brenda
at a previous encounter, "I don't like n*ggers anyway." They went
to work immediately.
    "They threw me to the kitchen floor.  They put a gun up to my
head.  This white one (cop) told me, 'Don't move, b*tch.'  I was
trying to turn over cause my stomach was hurting by me being
pregnant.  He told me, 'Don't move b*tch or I'll blow your brains
out.'"  Despite the pain, Brenda was forced to remain on the cold
floor for twenty minutes.  Her boyfriend, her sister, her sister's
boyfriend, her nephew and his girlfriend were also forced to lie
on the floor.
    Also in the apartment were Brenda's nieces, two of them small
children.  Police pointed their guns at them.  Terrified, the kids
had to go to the bathroom.  Brenda's 15-year-old neice asked the
police if the children could use the toilet. The cops refused to
allow it.  The two-year-old peed on herself.  The six-year-old
crapped on herself.
    The apartment was searched.  "What y'all looking for,"
demanded Brenda, as cartons would fly and mattresses were torn
open, "Ain't nothing in my house, nothing but some cats."  "Fuck
these cats," responded a cop, kicking one of her pets.  The police
found nothing, with one cop remarking, "Nothing in there but a
bunch of damn teddy bears and pictures any damn way."
    Even simple common decency was ignored.  All Brenda and her
nephew's girlfriend had on were t-shirts.  They weren't allowed to
put anything else on.
    At one point during their rampage, the police informed Brenda
their reason for raiding her apartment.  They had a photo of her
grown son Ron, who they claimed had dealt drugs to a cop.  The
fact that Ron didn't live there or come by had little relevance to
the police.  They wanted to find him.
    Each adult was taken into the back room and questioned, one
at a time.  "If I have some money to give you," the cops would
ask, "would you show me where a certain person was."  No one knew,
no one talked, and no one was taking bribes, as Brenda called
them.  Yet that didn't stop the police from lying. "You're sister
said that you know where he at," one cop told Brenda.
    And then they left, walking around the hallway corner to kick
on the door to another apartment.  They said they didn't get what
they were looking for.
    With the cops finally gone, Brenda's sister got the kids to
school, and left as well.  Brenda propped a bed up on her now
damaged door and went to lie down, hoping to get some rest.  She
was wrong.  Around 8:30, three and half hours after the first
raid, she was woken to a small scale invasion of her apartment.
    Seventeen cops, most of them undercover had returned for
another raid.  They marched into the bedroom, struck her boyfriend
with a flashlight and tried to poke him in the eye.  After he
moved the hand away, one cop smacked him in head a number of times
wtih what appeared to be a large iron lock.  They left shortly
after.
    Before the afternoon was over Brenda and her boyfriend were
stopped by police who checked their apartment against a list.  She
had to show her ID as well.  Had she not had her ID with her,
Brenda would have gone straight to jail.  It was like a massive
prison.

    Perhaps even more to anyone else, Operation Blue Tornado was
a total surprise to Rhonda.  It was billed as an effort to attack
drug dealing in Henry Horner - but she didn't live in the
projects, just nearby.  Still, early in the morning she could just
watch as police rousted her son and hauled him off to jail.  "We
have a federal warrant" was the only explaination that she got.
Yet there was nothing on it.  Getting a straight answer was
impossible.  The city police referred Rhonda to the CHA police.
The CHA police referred her to the city cops.  For three days her
son was kept in jail, while police ran prints to come up with
something.  After two failed attempts to find anything on her son,
he was finally released without any charges.

    The first group of police came to Barbara Simpson's apartment
at five in the morning.  The last group arrived at seven.  Over
that two hour time span, Barbara recieved four visits  - most of
them just minutes apart - with a grand total of more than 20 cops
that marched in and out of her apartment.
    Some of them wore CHA uniforms and some were in plainclothes.
There were Black cops, white cops, a latino cop and an Asian cop.
At least one was DEA and a few were women.  They all wanted to
know the where-a-bouts of her 27-year old son Lonnell.  While a
few cops were "nice", it usually got ugly.
    She told them he didn't live there and that he's a grown man
now.  "B*tch, we don't got time for this shit," demanded one of
the Black cops, "You know you know where your son is at."
    The cops kept repeatedly questioning and leaning on her two
teenage sons that lived with her.  Tired of this, she told one
group of cops to bring her sons out of the cold hallway and back
in the apartment.  "Shut the fuck up," was their reply.
    When she demanded to see a warrant, the cop only showed her
a closed folder.  This one was no stranger to Barbara.  Three
years ago he had beaten her son-in-law so bad with a flashlight
that his back was bruised and his face was swollen.  Now the cop
was back.  "That's not showing me no warrant," she told him.
"That's all you need to know" he replied.
    Eventually the police found who they were looking for - at his
sister's apartment.  Despite the fact that she didn't live in
public housing, CHA police just walked into her home, into a
bedroom and arrested her brother. He was charged with selling one
rock of cocaine and given a $100,000 bond.  Watching this,
Barbara's eldest son complained, and was also taken away in
handcuffs.  He was later released.

          "OPERATION STORMY MONDAY" - WENTWORTH GARDENS

    At five a.m., Lottie Weathersby was woken from her sleep by
the sound of a battering ram on the front door to her row house
apartment.  No sooner did she take the chain off the door than a
group of police raced past her and up the stairs.  All in black.
Their faces hidden beneath black ski masks.
    Their first stop was her five-year-old grandson.  They
snatched him out of bed, put a gun to his head and told him to get
downstairs.  Next was her 23-year-old daughter, who woke up with
a gun pointed at her nose. When she got to the stairs they shoved
her, but luckily she didn't fall.
    Last was Lottie's grandson, who was just visiting.  The police
accused him of being a drug dealer, but according to Lottie, they
had him mixed up with a different person.  Regardless, her
grandson was still arrested on charges of selling crack to an
undercover police, his bond set at $50,000.  Lottie would have to
come up with $35,000 to get him out - and then prove where the
money came from, or be arrested herself.
    Since the raid, her grandchild is too scared to stay over, and
her daughter was too nervous to sleep in her bed.  Lottie intends
to fight the authorities over the raid, commenting, "They treated
my house as if it was their outhouse"

    Joanne Bradley's first reaction to the knocking on her door
was to try to ignore it. It was 4:40 in the morning - "can't be no
one knocking."  By the time she got up and got to her bedroom
door, her daughter had made it to the front door.  Outside were a
group of people dressed head to toe in black, like "ninjas' as
Joanne later described them.  It was the police.
    They stormed in and demanded to know where Joanne's seventeen
year-old son was.  "Where's Willie at, b*tch."
    THey room to room terrorizing her children.  Her fifteen year
old daughter woke up to see a gun pointed at her.  They push in
Willie's door, and put one foot on his back and another on his
neck.  "Get up muthafucka," they bark, "get your hands behind your
back."  He's cuffed and taken downstairs.
    Her other son recieves similar treatment - one second lying
in bed, the next having a gun put up on his head.  He's cuffed and
taken downstairs.  His requests to put on some clothes rejected.
A minute or so later his cuffs are removed, while Willie is taken
out to the police car.  His bond set at $50,000 for a drug charge.
No warrant was ever shown.
    Joanne calls 911 to complain, and a supervisor comes out.
They track down one of the cops in the raid.  The cop still
insists they had warrants, while the supervisor confirms that
these "ninja" are C.H.A. police.  The supervisor also finds it
funny.
    A little over an hour later, Joanne was getting ready to leave
out for the police station.  Again, the police arrive.  She opens
the door and has a gun stuck in her face.  She wants to know
what's going on, telling them that the police had already been
there.  "Shut up b*tch, sit down," is their answer.
    While waving their guns around, they search the apartment
again.  They question Joanne, demanding she inform on other
residents.  She refuses, and the cops leave shortly after.  As for
Joanne, she feels that her rights and those of her children were
violated. "Nowhere in Chicago do they do this shit but in public
housing."