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."
Yeah, sort of like convicted murderers getting paroled after 7.
Your comment, I believe, had to do with “the concept of private property.” Whether it is a cheap property or a very expensive one, he does not get to do whatever he wants with that property in most places.
He wasn't rich, he was simply not keeping his house up. So your apparent hatred of wealthy homeowners has little relevance to this argument.
Rich or not rich, as the property owner he has an obligation to maintain that property in accordance with community standards in most places. That’s just the way it is. If my apparent hatred of wealthy homeowners has little relevance, would my apparent hatred of scofflaws be relevant?
Second, the fact that property rights in this country have, as a matter of fact, been greatly eroded by creeping socialism doesn't mean that, in theory, this creeping socialism is a good thing.
And aren’t necessarily bad either. For instance, the “family” that lives in an apartment across the street is actually about three families from what I can see. They run (ran, actually) a taxi service from that apartment and had at least seven taxi cabs that they parked all over the place. It sort of puts a kink in the works when each apartment has a single parking space but the residents have many more (commercial) vehicles than they can park - and there are community regulations against running a business out of a residence without a permit here anyway. I don’t particularly mind that.
The main issues are these: why do Mr. Wolk's neighbors get to decide how he deals with his own property? Why do their personal preferences outweigh his own preferences with regard to his property? Do the terms of his deed impose upon him a condition to repair his property? If not, why is he compelled to do so? Why is this a criminal and not a civil offence? What is the standard, and who decides, which house is in an acceptable and which house in an unacceptable state of repair? Was it necessary to smash down his door?
Typically, the neighbors do not “get to decide.” The community standards are in place and a neighbor may call and report a violation, which the city will investigate and pursue or not. Personal preferences don’t have much to do with it – you are in compliance or not. He is compelled to do so, generally, because of past legal action. Generally, someone will file a suit that will result in the city passing an ordinance – or they will do it under the guise of public safety, whatever. As to why this was a criminal offence – it wasn’t. At least not at first. He ignored repeated attempts to resolve the situation. There is no point in having a regulation, law or ordinance that cannot or will not be enforced. So ultimately, yes, they had to go drag him out.
Keep that in mind the next time you get a parking or speeding ticket. You may pay it or contest it, but if you decide to ignore the first one, and ignore the second and third ones, don’t be surprised when you end up getting arrested due to outstanding warrants for failure to appear regarding something that could have been taken care of quickly and easily. You probably won’t like it, just don’t be surprised.
Not according to me. According to the law in Chicago. However, I do believe that in cases like this, property rights are not absolute, but must in fact be traded against community interests. Resolution of the conflicts between private and community interests are (and should be) handled by courts and enforced by police.
We can argue about the specifics of this particular case; however, the underlying point is beyond reasonable dispute.
I was responding to the comment that the condition of my neighbor's house has no real effect on my own property interests. Clearly I do have a stake, if (say) the condition of his house makes my house more difficult to sell. Part of living in a community is that I have a responsibility to take into account how my actions -- even on my own property -- will affect the neighbors.
Apparently, compassion and understanding are not a part of your community.
Apparently compassion and understanding are only one-way in yours. The man clearly had no compassion or understanding for his neighbors.
Civilians and property owners, WEAR THE DAMNED VEST!, shoot first and survive the encounter!
Hell, why stop there, why not rally social correctness too?
Would you expect plainsclothed police at 10 pm ?
This is a trick used by home invaders in Houston.
BULL! A private property owner has EVERY right to do that! There is absolutely NO SUCH THING as a RIGHT to high property values.
He should have respected private property.
Some people obviously have the original draft of the Bill of Rights with the extra amendment, the "right to high property values". what maroons!
We all know only those Un-PC Christians behave that way. And in that instance they'd be in competition or at odds with the government.
So if armed government agents told you to move your trailer into your garage and you didn't have a garage, what would you do?
You're essentially claiming that what you do on your own property cannot possibly effect my property rights. However, by your formulation, my exercise of property rights includes the right to do with my property as I will, include selling it. The question then is, in that situation can your exercise of property rights possibly have an impact on me?
Putting it that way, yours is clearly a false premise: the condition of your property can indeed affect my ability to dispose of my property as I see fit. The condition of your property enhances or degrades the market value of my own, and makes my property more or less saleable.
In that case, your actions on your property obviously can affect my property rights, in the sense that they affect my ability to dispose of it as I will. IOW, your property rights and mine are not independent.
Things like that are the basis of the valid concept of "community interest," which can and should act as a constraint on the unlimited exercise of property rights.
what a good little collectivist you are!
What an unpleasant neighbor you must be.
Irrespective of any legal justification, warrants, etc., this was a monumental tactical screw-up by the police.
My father-in-law would have shot me one dark night if he could have found his revolver in the dark. The power went off in the neighborhood, a few minutes later I was pounding (he didn't hear well) on his door to see if he was okay, and after being burglarized twice before, he was sure that burglars had cut only HIS power off and were trying to break in. Old people can get really scared, and it's not nice to break their doors down!
So socialism - i.e. the expropriation by the state of private property - is a neutral thing. A tool, which can be used as a weapon against people you don't like or as a means of favoring people you do like.
An interesting argument, but at base immoral.
For instance, the “family” that lives in an apartment across the street is actually about three families from what I can see.
Hmmm . . . do they rent or own? If they rent, are they violating the terms of the lease? If they own, are they violating the terms of the deed they agreed to?
They run (ran, actually) a taxi service from that apartment and had at least seven taxi cabs that they parked all over the place.
I don't see why you have a say in what kind of business they run.
It sort of puts a kink in the works when each apartment has a single parking space but the residents have many more (commercial) vehicles than they can park
Does each apartment owner/renter have a right to one space? Are these people violating the property rights of others when they monopolize these spaces?
- and there are community regulations against running a business out of a residence without a permit here anyway. I don’t particularly mind that.
What if you brought home some paperwork from the office, hypothetically, and worked from home over the weekend. Is that running a business out of your home? What are the limits, exactly?
Typically, the neighbors do not “get to decide.” The community standards are in place
How did they get "in place"? They started somewhere. The man had lived in the community for 75 years. At what point did he cross over into violating these "community standards"? Who sets the "standards"? The State? If so, they're not community standards.
and a neighbor may call and report a violation, which the city will investigate and pursue or not. Personal preferences don’t have much to do with it – you are in compliance or not.
Oh, is it just that simple? There are no other neighbors in the community who are in violation of these nebulous codes? Every property in that neighborhood is in impeccable shape? (BTW, I know this is not the case - I used to live nearby). Are there people perhaps in that community who own a number of properties in varying stages of disrepair, but because they have money and know an alderman they go unharassed?
He is compelled to do so, generally, because of past legal action. Generally, someone will file a suit that will result in the city passing an ordinance – or they will do it under the guise of public safety, whatever.
So the city can move to erode individual property rights without altering the Constitution. Interesting.
As to why this was a criminal offence – it wasn’t. At least not at first. He ignored repeated attempts to resolve the situation. There is no point in having a regulation, law or ordinance that cannot or will not be enforced. So ultimately, yes, they had to go drag him out.
Ah, they were compelled to make an example of him. They had no choice but to smash an old man's door down in the middle of the night for the crime of not fixing his porch. There simply was no other option conceivable to man. It was fated by the gods.
There is a concept in common law (the tradition on which our Constitution is grounded) which provides for equity - i.e. not using a bazooka to kill a fly.
Because some functionary refused to view a case with a human eye, two men are dead. If that is the system of law we live under, anarchy would be preferable.
They were expecting a helpless senior citizen, acting like a submissive victim. They got Mr. Wolk!
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