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."
In Chicago, the government gives stealing property precedence over saving lives.
The guy who moves to my neighborhood and opens a brothel or biker bar -- even if it's entirely on his property -- imposes real costs on me and my neighbors. In a free society, I have some say about whether I'm willing to accept those costs. Thus, as a member of a free society, I should have legal recourse to prevent him from imposing those costs without my consent. This is an example of how private property rights and community interests may not necessarily be in agreement.
In such cases, property rights must be traded against community interests. We can argue about the parameters of the trade; however, the fact that there is a legitimate trade to be made, is beyond question.
At the very least, this implies a requirement for a legal body with authority to decide between legitimate conflicts of interest, and to enforce the ruling once it's made. Thus, the existence of Chicago property courts is quite defensible, even if their current actions are excessive.
Only in your mind. You were never guaranteed the right to high property values, were you? I know I wasn't when I bought my house. Maybe you are a little more special than everyone else here.
This illustrates the problem with property rights absolutists. The exercise of property rights can and does impose costs on others. The unasked-for imposition of costs is a violation of my property rights.
gain, you are only talking property dollar value here which is subjective at best.
It's beyond ludicrous to suggest that my neighbors and I have no legitimate claims to recourse if some guy on the block decides, say, to open a biker bar or brothel in his house. Clearly it's within his absolute property rights to do such things. And just as clearly, his actions will affect the rest of us -- not just our property values, but also things like our quality of life, and even safety. He has imposed definite costs.
I will assume you have noise ordinances, that could easily take care of a biker bar. Prostitution is illegal in all but one state so chances are you don't have to worry about that.
Any people here from Nevada that have property rights issues due to the local whore house?
Monetary value is not a right.
As is typical with libertarian solutions, those behaviors that are detrimental to the community must be allowed at all costs, whereas community standards cannot be enforced, because it's "legislating morality."
I'm sure many Taliban would agree with the sarcasm in this remark.
The basic premise of those who advocate absolute property rights is that we can pretend to live in isolation from those around us. In real life, the pretense does not stand up to serious scrutiny.
Only people that can't mind their own business hold this view. I have motorcycles zooming up and down my street all day during the weekends. (1) Is what they are doing legal? No. (2) Are they destroying my property? No. Do I call the police on them? No. Why? Because they are not hurting anyone. You would turn them in wouldn't you?
Many on this thread have staked out a libertarian (i.e., indefensible) position on property rights. Here in the real world, it's better to recognize that there are in fact legitimate constraints to the exercise of property rights, and to lay out a defensible position on how to maximize property rights, and keep the constraints to a minimum.
Same thing could be said for gun rights, 20,000 laws ago.
Try being less of a "Ve vas jus follovink Orders" apologist for the real criminals in our society. Try thinking of "civilians" as your ultimate bosses. If you don't, there will come a time when they will be forced to remind you of that fact. We are your masters, not your slaves.
Not to be a hard case or anything but, seeing how private property is the cornerstone of a free society, I only have one question for you. Do you wipe your ass with the Constitution every time you go to the bathroom?
Wrong. They should have burned the bustard out.
If they flaunt authority in housing court we can assume that they will also litter and j-walk.
A firm hand is what Citizens need and want.
Our country is a littel safer today, no doubt due to the sacrifice of an officer totally unprepared for the task.
You are my master? Think again, boyo. What in the heck gave you that idea?
Actually, it is well within questioning.
Your hypothetical brothel and/or biker bar bring up important points.
What is objectionable about a biker bar? Is it the noise? If so, there is no right to disturb the peace.
Is it drunken bikers wandering around on private property? They're not allowed on your property. The only property they're allowed on is the bar's and on the government's property (i.e. the street). In a free society, the government would not own the street - local property owners would and could decide not to allow bar patrons to cross it in order to get to this establishment.
Is it public drunkenness? Again, if you don't want drunks on your property (including now the road) they're trespassing if they do enter it.
Every single objectionable bit of behavior by the bar's patrons is actionable in a free society - i.e. it is a violation of property rights. The patrons would be quiet as churchmice and sober as judges.
People should always remember that EVERY LAW carries a MINIMUM sentence of death if you refuse to comply with those trying to enforce it. Remember that the next time you get a parking ticket. Remember it the next time you say "there ought to be a law", because what you're actually saying is the state should legally be able to KILL people who refuse to comply.
Of course, such items will remain perfectly legal for Police who wish to bring 77 yr old men to heel for failing to prettify their property when ordered to do so.
We live not as isolated individuals but as a society, in which people can have conflicting legitimate interests. As such, private property is not the cornerstone of a free society, but merely one expression of it.
The real basis of a free society is an underlying set of agreed-upon moral principles which allow for the just and proper resolution of legitimate conflicts. It is that agreement, and the enforcement of that agreement, which is the cornerstone of a free society. Unfortunately for you, that moral framework has to include factors beyond purely property-based considerations.
By limiting the basis of freedom to property, you exclude all non-property costs from the realm of legitimate interpersonal conflict.
I note, by the way, that the "free society" of old -- and it was in many ways much freer than today's -- recognized those non-property costs, and codified them in a variety of ways.
Now, getting down to hard cases -- do you flush every ounce of perspective and common sense down the toilet when you go to the bathroom?
Read that slowly. Consider and inwardly digest every word. Think very hard about all of the implications.
"The peace" is a community interest. If my activities on my private property "disturb the peace," then the community has a right to curtail my activities.
Case closed.
What are unarmored police officers doing breaking doors down for non-emergencies? If the guy refuses to come out, isn't that a job for SWAT? I thought they handled all of the difficult cases (when the officers know in advance it will be a difficult case).
If my property makes yours less valuable, do you get to sue me for the difference when you sell?
The answer is NO to both questions, as you very well know. If I have no right to the benefit you receive from the good condition of my property, what makes you think you have the right to force me to improve the value of your land? It's called theft, and conversion of my property rights to your benefit, you communist. Worse, it's done by the State, at your behest, on penalty of DEATH if I resist.
I mourn the old man in this case, but I'm glad he took one of the thieving communist bastards with him.
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