Mount Prospect police forms first gang unit

When Mount Prospect residents fill out their yearly survey for the police department, their top concern almost always is traffic.

Not this year.

This year traffic took a back seat to gang activity, said Chief John Dahlberg, adding that he wasn't surprised.

"I first took notice when my police officers came to me over the winter and said 'Chief, we are seeing an influx of gang activity like we've never seen before,'" Dahlberg said. "This is a problem that isn't going away. There is a very real gang presence in Mount Prospect."

To combat the presence, Dahlberg formed the village's first gang intelligence unit this week. Sgt. Anthony Addante - an 11-year veteran of the Mount Prospect Police Department - was promoted Tuesday and will supervise the new unit.

Addante will have three officers reporting to him. The new unit will start putting together a database to track gang members and their activities, including what kind of cars they drive and who they hang out with, Dahlberg said. The database also will track gang members when they move or commit crimes in nearby suburbs, he said.

"We're going to find out who is in our community and what they're doing," he said.

Dahlberg said two of Mount Prospect's most recent serious crimes were gang related and show how serious the problem is.

The first was the July murder of Jean Wattecamps, 52, who prosecutors say was stabbed eight times in his home at the Colony Apartments. Marko Guardiola, 37, and Edwin Paniagua, 15, were later charged with first-degree murder. Police said Guardiola is a gang member with an extensive criminal history.

On April 2, an 8-year-old Mount Prospect boy was shot in the cheek by a stray bullet police say came from gang members. Ader Torres was playing football with his sisters behind their apartment building on Boxwood Drive when a stray bullet grazed his face, embedding itself in his left cheek. He spent a week in the hospital and police never found out who fired the bullets.

"In Illinois it's a growing problem, it's not just here," Dahlberg said. "Illinois ranked per capita as having more gang members than any other state in the country."

Mount Prospect Mayor Irvana Wilks said gangs in Mount Prospect are not new. She remembers signing an anti-graffiti ordinance as a village trustee in the mid-1990s.

"That's when they were only marking their territory," Wilks said. "Now it's different, but the important thing is from a police standpoint, we can't let up. I think this unit will make a big difference. We were able to promote without our department because of how well trained our officers are."