When David Ostertag heard the news Thursday that two south suburban Lansing police officers were shot down, one fatally, in a gun battle, it brought back the terrible memories of a spring day almost a year ago.
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”I started crying when I saw it on TV,” said the Round Lake Beach police sergeant, ”thinking what`s going on with their family and friends and the police department there.”
He knows. Last May 7, Ostertag himself became a statistic of the growing violence against police officers when he was shot in the chest by a fleeing suspect. The experience left him with permanent nerve damage on his right side and a new respect for how deadly police work has become.
”It`s a much more dangerous way to make a living than it used to be,”
said Ostertag, who drove to Waukegan on Thursday to watch the sentencing of David Morley, the man who gunned him down.
In an era of widespread gang violence, readily available guns and battles over drug turf, it comes as no surprise to most urban dwellers that city police are facing heightened dangers on the street.
In Chicago last year, 15 officers were shot and another stabbed with a knife, according to Chicago Police Sgt. Harvey Radney. Two were killed, including a Chicago Housing Authority officer. So far this year, four have been shot, including one killed in March, Officer Robert Perkins.
But what may be more surprising is that violence against suburban police- once nearly a contradiction of terms-is keeping pace this year. In 1991, two suburban officers were shot. Already this year, four have been shot, including Lansing Officer Kenneth Novak, killed Wednesday night while trying to aid a woman who said her car was disabled.
Her boyfriend, Kevin Hardy, had jumped house arrest in Indianapolis and stolen the car they were driving. Police say Hardy surprised Novak and shot him in the chest as he sat in his patrol car. A second Lansing officer, George Dragicevich, was wounded, but managed to kill Hardy with two shots fired through the windshield as the gunman drove off, police said.
In general, city streets are still more dangerous than suburban neighborhoods. Between 1982 and 1992, 18 Chicago police officers were slain, as was one CHA officer, according to FBI statistics. By comparison, five officers were killed on suburban beats, including the Lansing killing.
But FBI records show that statewide, assaults on police, with guns, knives, fists or other weapons, have grown at a steady pace since 1988. That year, 1,920 of Illinois` 25,562 police officers were assaulted, 6.8 percent of them with guns. About 57 percent of those assaulted were injured.
In 1990, by comparison, the most recent year records are available, 2,035 officers were assaulted, 11.1 percent of them with guns. About 53 percent of assaulted officers were injured.
There is no breakdown for city, suburbs or rural areas. But there have been at least 15 suburban police shootings since the mid-`80s, according to news reports.
”It is getting more and more violent, especially in the last five years,” said Calumet City Police Chief Steven Rhoads, who says his city has seen a big increase in what he calls ”senseless violence.”
Though gangs moving out from Chicago are part of the problem, Rhoads and other police officials say society in general is more violent.
”It`s not all Chicago`s fault,” Rhoads said. ”It`s society`s problem. Society as a whole has gotten more violent. There`s less respect for human rights and values and nature. It`s a very dangerous trend.”
Bozidar Dragicevich, the wounded Lansing officer`s father, said Thursday that he had long believed his son was safe working in the suburbs. ”But now I tell you there is not 100 percent safety anyplace,” he said.
Suburban police say they, too, are becoming much more aware of those dangers.
”I think (we) had the attitude, well, we`re in the suburbs,” said Wheeling Deputy Chief Michael Hermes, a 25-year veteran of that northwest suburban department. ”But that whole attitude has changed.”
Elmhurst Police Chief John Millner, who also serves as president of the Du Page Police Chiefs Association, said he knows that streets everywhere have gotten meaner.
Oak Lawn Police Chief Frank Gilbert blames gang activity spreading out from the city and crimes committed by Chicagoans in the suburbs as a key source of trouble. In Oak Lawn, ”between 65 and 70 percent of our problems come from the city,” he said.
But gangs are not the only source of violence.
Just last month, two Cook County sheriff`s police officers were shot in a gun battle with Wayne Chaney, the Des Plaines man who was sought in the slaying of his estranged wife.
Last year, Palatine Officer Kevin Maher was shot after pulling over the car of bank robbery suspect Jeff Erickson. Erickson is charged with the shooting.
And in previous years, suburban officers were shot responding to domestic disputes, during traffic stops, while responding to burglary alarms, in scuffles and during shootouts.
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Police have reacted to the increased violence by improving training and by wearing the bulletproof vests they once left hanging in their lockers.
”In the last year or two, there`s been a tremendous increase in the number of our officers who are wearing them,” said Hermes, of Wheeling. ”We went from about 40 or 50 percent who wore them on a daily basis-now it`s 97 percent.”
That is especially true in departments where officers have seen how quickly and unexpectedly shootings can occur, including Riverside, where Patrol Officer Tom Wietzel was shot in 1989 when he approached a suspicious car parked in the well-to-do suburb.
The shot at Wietzel`s heart. The vest saved his life.
”He did everything right that night, followed every safety procedure, and if the shooter wouldn`t have been an excellent shot and missed high or low, or the officer wasn`t wearing his vest, he would be dead,” said Riverside Chief Donald Doneske.
In response to the violence, police officials in both the city and suburbs say they are increasing training for what they call ”tactical awareness,” but warn they also do not want to create officers too nervous to do their jobs.
”You get guys too keyed up and they`ll overreact,” warned Calumet City`s Rhoads.
But a great degree of caution is now warranted, he and others say, both in the city and the suburbs.
”Every morning you hear about a half-dozen people killed in incidents on the streets, and when you`re out there in the blue uniform, you never know when you`re going to walk into one of those incidents,” said John Dineen, president of the Fraternal Order of8.1%
1990 11.1%