As Nicholas Swanson was laid to rest Wednesday in a ceremony cloaked with despair, two normally tranquil suburbs were left to face unsettling questions of how commonplace teenage troubles had escalated into death.
Saturday’s fatal brawl unleashed a wide spectrum of emotion in the wealthy riverside city of St. Charles and the tiny farming town of Burlington, whose schools produced many of the combatants. Some were angry at what they called the unfair tarnishing of their communities, while others said that long-simmering problems had finally boiled over.
“It’s about time people realized what students from here are doing,” said Frances Gilmore, 17, a junior at St. Charles North High School. “What they’re doing is taking their parents’ money, buying alcohol and getting into fights. It’s kind of a wake-up call to the school.”
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Swanson, 20, had rushed to his brother’s aid when about 50 teens, mostly current or former students at St. Charles North and Burlington’s Central High, squared off in a drunken dispute that authorities say began over a girl. Swanson was fatally struck in the head soon after he arrived.
Friends and relatives have called Swanson an affable, well-liked young man, and his popularity was evident at his funeral. Laird Funeral Home in Elgin was so crowded with teenage mourners that many were forced to stand in the lobby.
The service was brief and sad, with touches that reflected Swanson’s love of all things automotive. Pallbearers hand-wrote “RIP Nick” on their T-shirts touting motorcycle shops and muscle cars, and songs such as Garth Brooks’ “Friends in Low Places” and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” played from a truck stereo at the interment.
Prosecutors’ maneuver
Meanwhile, authorities dropped felony mob action charges against the four young men–Brian Halling, 18, of St. Charles; David West, 18, of Geneva; Christopher Leon, 19, of South Elgin; and James Scimeca, 18, of St. Charles–arrested in connection with the fight. Prosecutors said it was a legal maneuver meant to allow the possible filing of more serious charges, including murder.
They remain jailed on other felony charges, including aggravated battery.
First Assistant State’s Atty. Clint Hull said prosecutors could decide to charge the four with Swanson’s slaying under a legal theory that holds other participants in a crime responsible if someone is killed during the commission of a felony.
He said prosecutors became concerned that the four might have pleaded guilty to the less-serious charge of mob action, allowing them to invoke double jeopardy to keep authorities from filing murder charges.
“This is just to keep our options open,” Hull said.
Hearings attended by three of the suspects Wednesday produced tense moments when a man sitting with Swanson’s friends stood and glowered at Scimeca and later made a move toward Leon. Bailiffs removed the man from the courtroom, and he later stormed angrily from the courthouse.
Kane County Judge Patricia Piper Golden declined to lower Scimeca’s bail from $250,000 to $25,000, in part because of an earlier conviction for criminal damage to property. South Elgin police said he used a stick to smash the driver’s side window and windshield of a car.
Others in the case have had their own brushes with the law. Halling, who is due in court Thursday to ask for a bail reduction, was ticketed for driving under the influence of alcohol following an October traffic accident.
Swanson himself was charged with misdemeanor criminal trespass to property in January. He paid a $75 fine for the charge on Feb. 1, court records show.
With an upcoming grand jury investigation promising to drag more youths into the case, residents of St. Charles and Burlington wondered what had gone wrong with some of their teenagers.
In Burlington, a rural community of 452 that is more a crossroads than a town, some called the brawl an isolated incident fueled by booze and tempers, while others said it was the predictable consequence of insufficiently involved parents and violence-soaked popular entertainment.
“There’s a shorter temper today, a culture that’s a little less tolerant,” said Robert Raynor, 47, an insurance analyst who works in Burlington and is raising two teenage daughters. “The violence in the media has made this younger generation prone to violent reactions, rather than trying to work things out amicably.”
More bad news for community
Some in Burlington felt their community had been unjustly tainted by the tragedy, but the spotlight glaring on the town got a bit hotter Wednesday with the court appearance of a Central High School wrestler implicated in the assault of a teammate.
Ricky Leos, 16, was among several wrestlers who “physically and sexually harassed” a teammate, according to court documents filed by the school district. The district alleges that before practice on Feb. 7, Leos and others held down the boy while he was kicked, punched and assaulted.
The Kane County state’s attorney’s office is investigating the incident. But Leos, who has been suspended from the team, took the school to court in hopes that he could wrestle in the state championship tournament this weekend. Kane County Judge Michael Colwell ruled in favor of high school administrators, effectively ending Leos’ season.
Across the county in St. Charles, the Fox River city best known for its quaint downtown and million-dollar homes, some parents and teens said the fatal fight had sounded like an alarm.
“I got a huge lecture from my Dad,” said Aerika Haeseli, 16, a junior at St. Charles North. “He talked to everyone in my family. He’s just worried we’ll get into stuff like this.”
But others, like their counterparts in Burlington, said media coverage of the brawl had created an inaccurate perception of their community.
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“It was pretty much blown out of proportion by all the [TV] channels,” said Mike Hastings, a 17-year-old senior. “This case doesn’t concern us.”
Coroner Chuck West, however, said the effects of teen drinking and violence do indeed concern everybody in Kane County, but that too few seem to be taking it seriously–even the kids involved in the brawl.
“They do a play show for the public–their memorial service at the scene, that’s all for show,” he said. “Realistically, at the hospital that night they were talking about the parties they were going to and [acting as if] it was not a big deal that this kid was dead. The detectives picked up on it, and it irritated them because it was like, `No big deal.'”
“It is a big deal because there’s a dead kid involved,” he said. “And it has to be taken as a big deal.”