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."
If you hurt my property values, you're taking something from me.
Communities don't have rights, people do.
So which is it?
I could ask how it is living in subservience, but you are blessed with blissful ignorance and wouldn't realize the point of my queston, so I won't.
I do not see how you can conclude this from the information in the story.
Didn't happen. The flight school got notifications not the dead terrorists getting approval.
In Virginia you can go to jail if you don't plant your trees in the right place.
John Locke: "The great chief end therefore, of Mens uniting into Commonwealths, and putting themselves under Government, is the Preservation of their Property." He also said, "Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience..." --2nd Treatise of Government, 1690 the principal absolute rights which appertain to every Englishman,"
Seems to me that you are only interested in the "disposal value of your property" and nothing else in your so-called community spirit. LOL
Dynamic entry should only be allowed if there is an immediate threat to life of innocent people. No other reason. None. This was not the case. All LEO’s involved should be fired, today.
BTW, This event could not have happened. Mr. Wolk could not have shot anyone with those .22 handguns. Handguns are not allowed in Chicago.
Your repeated references to "community interest" is getting on my nerves, really.
My mother retired to a "community" called Butte LaRose, La. upon retirement. She purchased a log house sitting right on the bayou, for a moderate amount of money. Next to her property was a run down camp trailer. Across the narrow bayou was a $500,000 home.
These people of the "community" had gotten together to establish a water district and a volunteer fire department...as was their right to do so. They had monthly "community" meetings to discuss problems. Mostly the problems had to do with the feds dredging the bayou and killing the fish or voting on the Mardi Gras King and Queen.
People who lived there knew and recognized property rights. You would have to be there to know...no one complained about the traffic of the three wheelers on the weekends because they had roosters crowing at daylight. LOL
Anyway, we had no problem selling my Mom's property after her death...at a nice sum...because property values...are sometimes ...in the heart and soul...or a real "community".
A cop-killer on FR? or someone who just encourages it? Just throw him in with the PETA people who advocate violence as an end to their means?
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