Posted on 03/20/2002 9:02:11 AM PST by nemo
March 20, 2002
BY FRANK MAIN, FRAN SPIELMAN AND ANDREW HERRMANN STAFF REPORTERS
Henry A. Wolk didn't like strangers.
He was 77 years old, lived in the same Northwest Side home since he was 2 and often spoke to visitors through a vestibule mail slot close to the floor.
This was the reclusive world that officer Donald J. Marquez walked into Monday night to arrest Wolk for failing to answer a housing court subpoena.
About 10 p.m., Marquez knocked on the door, then pleaded with Wolk to go peacefully. Finally, he broke down Wolk's apartment door with a sledgehammer. He was immediately greeted with gunfire, wounded and fell in the front vestibule. By the time it was over, both Wolk and the officer were dead.
"Officer Marquez was an honest, hard-working cop whose efforts made this city a safe place," Chicago police Supt. Terry Hillard said Tuesday, tears welling in his eyes. "He was another officer doing his job and tragically taken away from us."
Marquez and his partner were trying to arrest Wolk because he ignored a subpoena they served him Jan. 5 to appear in court for a housing case.
The plainclothes officers and an upstairs tenant spoke to Wolk through his apartment door for several minutes, urging him to give up.
"He made a comment to the neighbor that he was not going to go to court, no matter what," said Phil Cline, chief of detectives for the Chicago police.
Marquez, who identified himself as an officer, smashed Wolk's door and Wolk fired a handgun at Marquez, Cline said.
Marquez, 47, and a father of four, was shot three times in the chest and once in the head.
As the 20-year police veteran collapsed into a pool of blood near a pile of magazines outside Wolk's first-floor apartment in the 2400 block of North Avers, Marquez's partner and the tenant scrambled upstairs.
A gun battle raged for at least 10 minutes. No other officers were killed, but Wolk was found dead inside.
Cline said officers from the Grand Central District and the Special Operations Unit worked heroically under fire to remove Marquez from the house and put him into an ambulance that took him to Illinois Masonic Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
Wolk fired a total of 10 shots and officers fired 24 at him, hitting him several times, authorities said. Police recovered two .22-caliber pistols they said Wolk had used; another .32-caliber handgun was found in his apartment, Cline said.
A neighbor, Jaime Rodriguez, 40, said he was returning from dinner and shopping with his family when he heard at least three shots from Wolk's home. Rodriguez, who said he was looking for a parking spot for his van, pulled around the block and crouched while he listened to the gun battle.
"There were six rapid shots, then I heard on the police radio, 'He is down, he is down; we have him now!" Rodriguez said.
Marquez, who was detailed to the Chicago corporation counsel's office several months ago, was responsible for serving subpoenas for people to appear in court. Marquez was not wearing a bulletproof vest when he was shot, officials said.
The department policy is for officers on patrol or street duty to wear them, said John Thomas, first deputy superintendent. The department will review its policy on vests in light of Marquez's shooting, he said.
Marquez's job involved administrative work as well as the kind of enforcement duties he and his partner were carrying out Monday, Thomas said.
Earlier, they had arrested two other people for failing to respond to subpoenas, said Corporation Counsel Mara Georges.
"Don was the kind of police officer who dealt with his heart as well as his head," said his brother, Dan Marquez. "He was known as a compassionate officer even when making these kinds of arrests. He would bend over backwards to make sure there was no confrontation. But he did what the warrant said. He knew the situation could turn deadly. He was always prepared."
Wolk's case dates to July when the city found 29 violations of the housing code at his two-story brick home in the 2400 block of North Avers, records show. After neighbors complained to the city, inspectors found a rotting porch, missing stairs, missing gutters, torn siding, a collapsed porch and other dangers.
Wolk was fined $14,500 on Oct. 16. He failed to show up for six court hearings. On Jan. 15, a judge issued a "body attachment" calling for police to take him into custody and use force if necessary.
Ald. Vilma Colom (35th) said her office tried for more than a year to deal with Wolk. She said she tried to tell him about city programs that could have provided money for repairs.
"He wasn't very cooperative," she said. "He said we had no business telling him what he could or could not do. He wouldn't come out of the house."
Colom said she checked up on Wolk once, bringing him a fan.
"He grabbed it, said 'thank you' and slammed the door," she said. "It's sad."
Marvin Cruz, who owns other buildings in the neighborhood, said he offered Wolk $100,000 for the house and would let him live rent-free for the rest of his life.
At first, Wolk would only talk to Cruz through a mail slot in the door about a foot off the ground.
Cruz lay on the porch while Wolk crouched behind the storm door.
Eventually, he was allowed inside.
"It was a mess, with piles of paper. It smelled like old pizza," Cruz said.
Wolk was guarded, but Cruz eventually learned that he moved into the home when he was 2. After his parents died, they left Wolk the home.
He did not appear to have physical disabilities, Cruz said.
"I think it was more in the head," he said. "But this made me so sad. I was eating breakfast when I saw it on the news. My spoon just fell, and I started crying.
Cruz thought he and Wolk were close to a deal. He intends to continue with his plans to buy and rehab the property.
And when he sells the house, he plans to donate up to $50,000 to Marquez's widow, Maria, and the couple's four children.
"I don't want to make any money on this," Cruz said. "I just want a little good to come from this awful tragedy."
The government responds by sending a man to use force to smash down his door and invade his home.
All the while, Mr. Cruz is negotiating a deal with the citizen which would have (a) respected his property rights and (b) had the same effect that the government wanted - a rehabbed property.
Now two men are dead because the government didn't know when to stop intruding in people's lives and invading their property. A nonviolent, freemarket solution was in the works. But the pencil pushers at the Corporation Counsel (Carol Mosley-Braun's old digs) wanted blood instead of peace.
Well, they issued a subpoena to him back in January and he ignored it. They talked to him through the door for several minutes, and apparently, he ignored their attempts to get him to come quietly. What next? After waiting almost two and a half months for him to comply, should they just sit and wait for him to die or what?
Mr. Wolk probably didn't have the money or the savvy to defend his property in court and he knew it. Who was he hurting? Why did he have to submit to a humiliating summons? What purpose is served in harassing a painfully shy old man?
If the system is wasting time and resources on such ridiculous nonsense in a city plagued by real crime and real criminals, then it will inevitably break down whether Mr. Wolk shows up for the charade or not.
Court system? We have millions upon millions of criminal illegal aliens running all over our streets. The courts don't seem too concerned about these criminals, do they?
The officer serving an arrest warrant was doing his job, the courts were doing their job and two men are dead unnecisarily becuase of a system that is in total disregard of the fundamental law of the land.
A housing court should not have any power over non rental property. It was his private property and the inspectors and courts levied fined against him totaling iver $14,000 without benefit of a jury trial. That house we may presume was held in fee simple by Mr. Wolk. How he maintained or did not maintain his property was nobody's business but his. He was not directly harming any of his neighbors and since he did not like strangers on his property they should have kept the H#ll out. Like I said two men are dead. Two people dead over 29 housibng code violations found last July.
"[I]nspectors found a rotting porch, missing stairs, missing gutters, torn siding, a collapsed porch and other dangers." Given the conditions in much of Chicago's less pleasent neighborhoods where landlords have a duty to tennants to maintain rental housing on the market (a case for the state regulation of commerce and a case of acting upon a tennant complaint) there is much more to this story than meets the eye. There is also a cse that can be made about excessive fines and unreasonable time limits imposed on Mr. Wolk. Of couse his greatest crime was he just wanted to be left alone by stangers. We can not have that after all it takes a village.
Yes. If the government can give visas to two terrorists 6 months after they died, then the government can wait 10 or 20 years for Wolk to die.
I should hope not; that's mighty big of you.
Who is the judge of being mentally right? Here was a 77 year old man, peaceful, but stubborn. Here was a cop that broke into his house, even if he had a court summons, its still breaking into this 77 year old man's house. So, the old man did what he did and tried to protect his hearth/home. It took someone else's actions to initiate this old man response.
Sounds like his house was becoming a nuisance to his neighbors.
It also sounds like this guy really needed help, not a subpoena to come to court. But if someone won't come out, what do you do...? This one's a stumper, folks...
Too bad for the cop, though. Probably wasn't a good idea to break down the door with a sledgehammer, although he did have a warrant. I'm torn; I can see both sides of this one.
The department policy is for officers on patrol or street duty to wear them, said John Thomas, first deputy superintendent. The department will review its policy on vests in light of Marquez's shooting, he said.
Why review the policy when enforcing the policy seems to be the answer?
From the article posted above:
Wolk's case dates to July when the city found 29 violations of the housing code at his two-story brick home in the 2400 block of North Avers, records show. After neighbors complained to the city, inspectors found a rotting porch, missing stairs, missing gutters, torn siding, a collapsed porch and other dangers.Wolk was fined $14,500 on Oct. 16. He failed to show up for six court hearings. On Jan. 15, a judge issued a "body attachment" calling for police to take him into custody and use force if necessary.
Ald. Vilma Colom (35th) said her office tried for more than a year to deal with Wolk. She said she tried to tell him about city programs that could have provided money for repairs.
Usually the elderly person is taken into protective custody and hauled off to a nursing home and sedated while city inspectors loot the place of cash and valubles; then the dumpster shows up and some contractor cousin of another city employee throws a lifetime's worth of possessions away and boards up the property; they lien the property for the work and scoop the real estate through a court appointed "guardian" (usually a politically wired attorney).
Could some of you defending the cops on this case, explain to me why they were serving the summons in the dark of night? with a sledgehammer?
Something doesn't smell right on this.
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