Hanover Park must subdue violence
Like Mayor Rodney Craig, we are rapidly running out of words to react to the recent rash of violence in Hanover Park. Are three murder cases in the space of a week evidence of a grim trend or, in Craig's phrase, "isolated" crimes that emphasize any community's need to remain vigilant against the ever-present threat of trouble?
It is likely some of both.
To some extent, whatever trend exists threatens a number of suburbs, and it's worth noting that the spate of violence that struck Hanover Park in the past week defies easy analysis. If authorities are correct, the homicides run the gamut of murder scenarios - One appears to be a case of domestic violence, one apparently the result of a home invasion by an acquaintance from a distant town and one stemmed from an altercation at a party.
But a closer look at cases going back to November suggests an environment that demands scrutiny. Craig has been admirably open in discussing the town's efforts to come to grips with the surge in violence, and there was understandable logic in his decision to tap the town's police chief, Ron Moser, as interim village manager earlier this month.
A police officer's perspective in the village's top administrative post would clearly seem valuable at this time. The community is counting on Moser to move quickly and, we suggest, more openly, since throughout the past week, police have been slow to provide a nervous public with detailed information.
Craig identifies a litany of measures the town has taken, including canceling time off to get as many officers as possible on the streets, creating a broad-based community group to recommend solutions and seeking federal funding for local programs. All these are valuable actions, of course, but the community also will need long-term solutions and hopefully an announcement will be coming soon of efforts aimed at those.
For it is not enough for Hanover Park or any town to emphasize that citizens remain generally safe and that the community has a lot of positives to offer. Those are truths, of course, and all towns deserve to be recognized for their best traits, not their occasional tragedies. But citizens also need to see that their leaders are bringing every possible resource to bear to maintain a comfortable and safe quality of life.
To be sure, this is a lesson for every suburb. Long gone are the days when suburbs were sleepy towns free of the crime more often associated with urban areas. This sudden surge is a reminder not just to Hanover Park but to all suburban communities that brutal crimes - albeit still far less common in the suburbs than elsewhere - are an ever-present threat. Clearly, they also demand equal vigilance.