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."
I'm sorry that you live there. Remember that incident a few years back where the guy lost some property to a river swell so he later dumped some soil to recover it and was hauled into court? The result was dead police officers, dead DA, wounded judge and others. I can't remember all the details. They pulled him over under the guise of truck bed rust in order to serve a warrant. His AR-15 had other plans.
So, tree police you say? Sounds lucrative. What will stop this ride to insanity?
So private property is not necessary for a free society? We just don't need it? We will have to disagree here. If you have nothing you can call your own then there is no freedom. The country started out as an agrarian society. You made your living off your land. If some commisar of the state told you that you couldn't plant that crop or some other easment, they were killed. And rightly so. But alas, there really is no private property ownership in the USA anymore. Don't belive me? Don't pay your property taxes and find out. This would explain why you can be killed for you siding falling down. It would also expalin why alot of us are so enraged by the system you love so much. The system that started out pretty well but has become adulterated by the statist mindset. Perverted well beyond any comprehension our founding fathers could have ever imagined.
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.
Agreements are broken all the time, the only thing that is real is the tangible. For the subjective, a capitalist society deals in contractual law. In essence, the Constitution is a contract on the limitation of the federal government's involement in the everyday life of the citizen. Well that has been broken. Do you disagree? The system has become so twisted and corrupt over the decades that now there remains no recourse in the courts against the perpetrator. So now you recive a shovel of sh*t and are trained to give thanks and ask for more. A lightyear behind where early Americans were.
By limiting the basis of freedom to property, you exclude all non-property costs from the realm of legitimate interpersonal conflict.
Your authoritarian colors show brightly by this statement. Bill Clintonesque. Americans just have too much darn freedom right? Got to limit that freedom stuff, it is bad. If you want a gurantee, have everyone sign a contract willingly. Like minded people will gravitate towards each other. The whole freedom of association thing, that is if you feel that is permissable. Otherwise, no one ever guaranteed you a damn thing in this life, Jack.
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.
Okay, name some.
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?
No, I just flush the need to be a statist. Individualism is based on sacrifice of the many for freedom of the individual. Collectivism is based on sacrifice of the individual for the good of the many. Where do you stand? There is no middle ground.
Of course government agencies clearly fall ouside of this category?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/518374/posts
Maybe some of those neighbors who were concerned about their property values should have gotten together and helped him repair his house....instead of turning him in to the city? At the very least... someone (even the judge) could have contacted one of those charity organizations that do repairs and remodels on homes for the elderly and less fortunate. This whole thing was handled poorly...resulting in two people losing their lives unnecessarily, IMHO.
Disturbing the peace is engaging in unpeaceful behavior - i.e. behavior which causes the reasonable person to believe that they are threatened by violence to either their property or their person.
Such a threat is a violation of property rights, and is a form of menacing directed at multiple persons rather than just one. It pertains to a "community" insofar as a community is an aggregate of individual property owners whose properties are being severally menaced.
Being too poor to fix your porch is not a peace-disturbing threat.
But I will say this: the job of a police officer is to defend lonely senior citizens from having their homes smashed into with a sledgehammer in the dead of night.
Did you read the line in the article that mentioned a neighbor (Mr. Cruz) who offered to buy the house for $100,000 and let the old man live in it rent free for the rest of his life? I think his neighbors were more than kind and patient. If the old man had taken Cruz up on the offer, then Cruz would have been responsible for getting the house up to city code - while the old man still lived in it rent free!
P.S. You should change your screen name to "Red Amerikan".
Now I can demonstrate the harm that these freebie grabbing illegals are causing; I fail to see the harm this old geezer was causing on HIS PROPERTY.
I never claimed that "property values" are a RIGHT, only that others do not have the right to TAKE them from me. It's kind of like my right to swing my fist ending where your nose begins.
Conservo? Seems that maybe you've been camping out with the "no rules" folks over in the Libertarian camp (Our misguided but beloved bretheren).
Legally constituted authorities implies conforming to the state and federal constitutions a case can be made that the city of Chicago and the government of the state of Illinois do not conform to either and as such are merely bullies with an organized buch of thugs enforcing their arbitray rules.
That access without a search warrant is tresspass.
I never claimed that there is a "right" to high property values, only that others do not have the "right" to take them from me.
Stay Safe !
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.