Police work has come a long way since Brown's murders

It was a Saturday morning. There was snow on the ground. Chicagoans were awakened to some terrible news.

Several people had been corralled into the back room of a suburban business and shot to death.

Palatine, 1993.

And now Tinley Park, 2008.

Even though the homicides feel hauntingly familiar, there is far more than just 15 years and 47 miles separating the police responses to the crimes.

From the first 911 call, Tinley Park benefited from a well-planned, detail-oriented quick reaction team from the South Suburban Major Crimes Task Force.

That fast response force in the south suburbs was formed because of what happened in Palatine on Saturday, Jan. 8, 1993. On that day, when Palatine police found seven people executed in the rear cooler and freezer at Brown's Chicken and Pasta on Northwest Highway, they did what was the standard operating procedure at the time in most suburbs faced with a multiple homicide. They scratched their heads and then they called the chief.

Fifteen years ago, Palatine and many other suburban police departments had nice squad cars, well-built headquarter buildings, educated officers and administrators who were exceedingly comfortable in their jobs.

What they didn't have was a steady diet of murders to solve … or a mechanism to respond to mass killings if they did occur … which they did in Palatine on that cold winter day in 1993.

There was no specialized task force in place to come to the rescue back then. The response was piecemeal and the investigation suffered. Two days afterward, by the time a new-fangled, multi-jurisdictional effort had been formalized by Palatine police Chief Jerry Bratcher, the crime scene had been pretty well worked over. By today's CSI standards, it was a Third World effort.

It took a full week for the Palatine Murder Task Force to get organized, and even then there were both jurisdictional squabbles and procedural headaches. There were officers from the Cook County Sheriff's Department, the state's attorney's office, the Illinois State Police, the FBI, the Chicago Police Department and 10 suburban police departments. Early on, the task force was comprised of more than 120 individuals, each of whom would have loved to "pinch" the guy who committed the killings.

In a controversial report on the way the investigation was conducted, Chicago's Better Government Association concluded that the Palatine Police Department was "no doubt sincere in its desire to solve the crime," it was "inexperienced in major homicide investigations. Yet, after the Task Force was assembled, Palatine officers, rather than more experienced officers who then became available, still remained in key positions of responsibility on the Task Force."

The BGA report found that, "overwhelmed by the magnitude of the case," Palatine officers failed effectively to: secure the crime scene; canvass the surrounding area; coordinate investigative personnel -- especially in utilizing those who were often more experienced than Palatine officers in homicide investigations; integrate the variety of resources (e.g. various computer database and analysis capabilities) that were available from the wide range of law enforcement agencies comprising the task force; open basic lines of communication between the Command and rank and file within the Task Force."

I dredge up the past only to contrast with the present. If a multiple homicide were to occur in Palatine today, the response would undoubtedly be much better. It would be coordinated by the Major Case Assistance Team (MCAT) which "was formed as a result of one of the nation's most horrific and puzzling mass murders."

MCAT is comprised of police agencies from many Northwest suburban communities and since its inception in 1998 has successfully investigated dozens of homicides and major criminal events.

There are numerous other similar task forces that have been established post-Palatine massacre. One of the most prominent is the South Suburban Major Crimes Task Force that is now working to solve the five shooting murders at a Lane Bryant women's clothing store in Tinley Park.

The SSMCTF has 150 representatives from 54 South suburban police departments. "The report on the Palatine massacre came out and one of the biggest criticisms was that you don't wait until something happens, then try to form a task force," said former Illinois Commerce Commission Police Chief Dave Weigand when the SSMCTF was formed in 1998.

"Hopefully, you're never going to need it," Weigand said at the time. "But I'm sure Palatine, in their wildest dreams, never thought that would happen."

Neither did Tinley Park. But crime history often repeats itself. And because of what happened in Palatine, the Lane Bryant slaughter stands a much better chance of being solved in far less time.

• Chuck Goudie, whose column appears each Monday, is the chief investigative reporter at ABC7 News in Chicago. The views in this column are his own and not those of WLS-TV. He can be reached at chuckgoudie@gmail.com