Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • 118

Section 2 Chicago Tribune, Wednesday, March 31, 1993 i. City rips apart more pay phones New view of guns gets $200,000 boost Attempt to link violence, health I IT 4 J' fe Htii fey Julie Poppen In a continuing push to rid the city of pay phones used by drug (dealers to conduct business, city workers used jackhammcrs on Tuesday to dismantle 12 illegal toin-operated phones on the South Side. Since Chicago implemented two of the toughest ordinances in the Country earlier this year aimed at removing illegal pay phones, Jibout 300 phones have been fipped out, said city Department of Revenue director Paul Vallas. The ordinances were designed to curb illicit drug peddling via telephone and put a damper on foitering. "In the suburbs, you don't see fthones up and down the public $rea," said Mayor Richard Daley, who was there as workers tore down a phone outside a liquor store.

"You don't need a phone riext to the alley." One of the city's ordinances allows aldermen to remove pay phones from public property if they are deemed a problem. The second authorizes the city's zjoning board to remove or prohibit pay phones on private prop- everyone has a tele- After Mayor Richard Daley's visit Tuesday, youths Roosevelt Lilly at bist Street and Calumet Avenue watch as base of a pay By Steve Johnson Gun violence, in the view of Chicago's Joyce Foundation, suffers an image problem. While everybody who knows about it decries, for instance, that the leading cause of death for both black and white American teenage boys is gunshot wounds, not enough people believe much can be done. With that in mind, the foundation's board voted Tuesday to dole out about $200,000 as the beginning of an effort aimed at redefining the way Americans think about firearm injury and, ultimately, reducing its occurrence. The foundation believes the epidemic of gun violence, rather than a problem uniquely for the criminal justice system, should also be dealt with as a profound public health nightmare.

That view, while in keeping with the beliefs of the American Academy of Pediatrics and former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, has not filtered into the general populace. "So long as one looks at this as solely a criminal problem, one comes up with solely criminal solutions," said Deborah Leff, the foundation's president. "But when you have a major cause of death hke this, you have to look for prevention solutions. We tried to identify people who were capable of doing that." Leff noted that although there are already more than 20,000 gun laws in the country, firearm violence continues to worsen.

A National Center for Health Statistics report issued last week showed that in 1990, more 15- to 19-year-olds than ever before 67 percent more than in 1985 were killed by firearms. Also in 1990, Leff said, at least two states, Texas and Louisiana, saw gun injuries pass car wrecks as the leading cause of death. Leff recalled that "when I was growing up, auto deaths were thought of as an act of God." But that changed, and the rate of such deaths diminished, she said, thanks to stricter safety regulations and a changing public view. "I would put guns in that same category. It has to be recognized as a cause of great injury, of great public cost," she said.

Two grants will go to the Harvard School of Public Health, which, through its Harvard Alcohol Project, played a key role in changing public perception of a "designated driver" from teetotaling neb-bish to smart guy and good friend. Among the alcohol project's successes were getting television series to address the drunken-driving problem and the concept of a designated driver. The latter term is now in at least one dictionary. Joyce Foundation staff approached the school about doing something similar for firearm injuries, and officials there agreed. With one $50,000 grant, the school will devise strategies for getting the public interested in understanding and treating guns as a health problem.

"Gun-related violence is paralyzing American cities and American society," said Jay Wins-ten, director of the school's Center for Health Communication. "The public is responding with growing intolerance and anger. It's created a situation where the timing is propitious to mount an effort to address the problem." Winsten said he expects the Joyce Foundation's effort will frompt other philanthropies to bcus on the problem. Then, probably later this year, officials at the Harvard school will come back to the foundation, asking for a lot more money to help implement those strategies. The Joyce Foundation, begun with the lumber fortune of Beatrice Joyce Kean, has a $420 million nest egg, and it gave away some $17 million last year, primarily to organizations in the Midwest The second grant to the Harvard school, of $93,500, will be used to pay for a nationwide poll taken by the Harris organization.

Lou Harris, chairman of L.H. Research, said the poll of 1,250 adults and 2,500 6th graders to high school seniors will be the first of such scope to probe their views about the influence of guns in their lives. "It'll be very revealing to see how much of a shadow guns cast over the lives and habits and fears and worries of young children," said Harris, who hopes to have the survey results ready by summer. The third Joyce grant will go to the Children's Memorial Hospital foundation, where pediatrician and gun-injury expert Katherine Kaufer Christoffel will lead efforts to establish a confederacy of health professionals and others dedicated to reducing gun violence. The hospital will use its almost $59,000 to set up and hold the first national conference of the Handgun Epidemic Lowering Plan (HELP) network.

Among the focuses will be to teach the health workers who have discussed the problem for years in professional journals how to get the gun-injury-as-health-cri-sis message out to the broader community. U.S. uses phone records against Tribune photo by Eduardo Confrere of Liberty Electric breaks apart the phone so it can be removed. city's demands and removed the phones, said Vallas. The phones torn down Tuesday were owned by Ameritel Adcom Teleser-vices and Dial Com Business Telephone Systems Vallas said.

Vallas said that over the next few months the city will beef up its phone removal efforts now that aldermen have had time to identify problem areas. "I wouldn't be surprised to see us move at least 10 phones a day," said Vallas. Maloney questions about Maloney's frequent purchases of money orders using the names of relatives and acquaintances. But after the alleged 1986 Rukn fix, Internal Revenue Service agents testified, Maloney increasingly had relatives and acquaintances purchase the money orders for him. IRS agent Catherine Batory testified that Maloney spent $7,602 in cash in 1983 that did not come from any known source of the judge's, suggesting the money was bribery proceeds.

The financial allegations were disputed by Maloney attorneys. The defense's first witness, Chicago police Sgt. James Lane, said Swano admitted freebasing cocaine when he was arrested with 2.5 grams of cocaine in January 1991. Swano, who pleaded guilty to federal racketeering charges in 1991, admitted snorting and smoking cocaine over a 15-year period, but denied he ever freebased the drug. Testimony resumes next By Matt O'Connor Prosecutors ended their case against retired Judge Thomas Maloney on Tuesday with surprise evidence indicating the judge's reputed "bagman" telephoned Maloney's courtroom at a key juncture of an El Rukn murder trial in 1986.

Telephone records obtained Monday showed that on June 19, 1986, the trial's third day, attorney Robert McGee made three quick-calls to Maloney's chambers, followed by a fourth call to back room outside the chambers. 1 William Swano, a corrupt lawyer who became a government witness, testified last week that McGee reached him on the backroom telephone that morning to t'ell him he had to give "the bjooks back," a code that the fix was off and a $10,000 bribe had to be returned. Maloney and McGee are on trial in U.S. District Court on charges of fixing the Rukn trial and two other felony cases in the 1980s. As part of their contract with the city, the companies must turn over a third of their revenues, which the city will use to remove troublesome legal and illegal pay phones, said Vallas.

The companies must also provide aldermen with lists of phones they have installed or wish to install, said Vallas. The aldermen, in turn, can direct objections to the company. So far, most of the illegal phone operators have complied with the subpoena. Detailed records of telephone calls from McGee's home, then at Presidential Towers, showed he made the four calls to the courtroom that morning. The records also showed that McGee called Swano's home once on June 7, 1986, and again shortly after midnight on June 14, 1986.

In addition, McGee called Maloney at his home at 12:47 a.m. on June 27, the records indicated. Swano also testified that Maloney returned a $10,000 bribe to him near the door of the judge's chambers later on June 27, shortly before Maloney convicted two Rukns of a double murder. Prosecutors contend Maloney backed off the fix after learning of an FBI investigation. Records of Swano's car telephone, previously submitted into evidence by prosecutors, indicate Swano frequently called McGee before and during the Rukn trial, but the calls then abruptly ended.

The prosecution also raised Bowen books aged, but the building didn't suffer any structural damage. The school was evacuated, but no students were injured, officials said. A custodian who tried to put out the fire with an extinguisher was treated for smoke inhalation, Ryan said. KENWOOD PULL-OUT Auto-Reverse 15 Watts 2 Separate BassTreble 18 FM6 Am Presets Music Search $25 Installation Student charged in fire that hit phone," said Aid. Arenda Trout-man (20th).

"For people who don't have a phone, one phone on a corner would be enough." An intensive bidding process over the last several months has resulted in the number of legal pay-phone operators shrinking to 4 from more than 30, said Vallas. They are American Pay Telephone Telecommunications U.S. Communications of Illinois and Illinois Bell, according to officials. 6f a us mmmMmmmm Retired Judge Thomas Maloney is on trial on charges of fixing an El Rukn trial. In a break for the government, prosecutors learned of the phone records Monday when a representative from Wedgewood Communications brought them to federal court in response to a Edward Ryan.

Police said Dukes was seen leaving the room used for book storage minutes before the fire was discovered around 12:30 p.m. Gloria Walker, principal of Bowen, 2710 E. 89th said the storage room walls were scorched and the book shelves were dam KENWOOD PULL-OUT CD 15 WATTS X2 Plays 3" CD Switchable Illumination 4x Oversampling 12 FM6 AM Presets $25 Installation MOTOROLA PORTABLE PHONE Includes Battery Charger 30 Number Memory One Year Warranty Made In U.S.A. Requires New Ameritech Mobile Activation 279 -150 IN STORE REBATE Soma Restriction! Apply. Call For Details Highland, Indiana 9501 Indianapolis Blvd.

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