The Babbling Burglar and the Summerdale Scandal

The Babbling Burglar and the Summerdale Scandal: TheLessons of Police Malfeasance More than forty years after Chicago's worst police scandal, the department is again under siege.. After

The Babbling Burglar and the Summerdale Scandal: The

Lessons of Police Malfeasance More than forty years after Chicago's worst police scandal, the department is again under siege A look back at Summerdale and its

aftermath.

By: Richard C Lindberg

In the darkened doorway of a liquor store on Berwyn Avenue, Officer Frank Faraci of the Chicago Police Department's 20th District (then the 40th)—Summerdale—stumbled into an old acquaintance "Well if it isn't the little burglar Richie Morrison," he sneered The smell of liquor on the breath of the police officer was unmistakable Morrison nervously asked how things were going at home The glib little thief whose chosen career

as a skilled cat burglar was firmly planted by 1958 when this encounter took place, was very polite and respectful to the boys in blue when it suited his needs but he never was very comfortable in their presence

"Well, they would be a little better if you would cut us guys in on some of your jobs," Faraci propositioned "You know Al Karras and some of the other fellows, and we'll go along with the show After all we like nice things too."

Morrison's chance encounter with this Summerdale District police officer that fateful evening set in motion a historical chain of events—an incident that would forever alter the landscape for police officers in the City of Chicago—and the future administration of law enforcement across the United States The devastating scandal involving eight Chicago Police officers who conspired with the burglar Morrison at various times to loot North Side retail stores

The scandal rocked the Chicago Police Department and the confidence

of the public to its bare foundations The ensuing events nearly cost Mayor Richard J Daley his career as a big city powerbroker, and led to systematic change put in place by a scholarly reformer known as the

"professor:" Orlando W Wilson from the University of California at Los Angeles A 19th century method of police administration permanently ended along with a way of life that traded on the favors of politicians, organized crime, and ward heelers of the very worst stripe

The scandal known as "Summerdale" was of unprecedented magnitude even for wicked old Cook County where malfeasance on the part of elected officials was (and by and large still is) just the normal course of

doing the business of government What made this one unique as

opposed to the average run-of-the-mill shakedowns perpetrated against unsuspecting motorists pulled over for traffic violations was that for the first time in departmental history uniformed police officers plotted and carried out burglaries while patrolling the streets of the "City of Big

Shoulders."

Collecting bribes, expecting "presents" and other emoluments from retail merchants at Christmas time, was something that Chicago residents had come to expect of its police officers over the years Burgling stores after-hours in the company of the accomplished sneak thief like Richard

Morrison who often served as the "lookout," was quite another to the citizenry of Chicago

By the tender age of fifteen Morrison was well on the road to becoming a professional thief His first arrest was recorded on May 6, 1953, when he was sentenced to ten days in the Cook County Jail for possessing

burglar's tools In the next two years his burgeoning criminal endeavors reflected a dozen different pick-ups as a burglary suspect In December

1955, he shifted his operation to Los Angeles where he served nine months in prison for retail burglary He then served nine months in Las Vegas for the same crime, before returning to Chicago in 1957 to accept

a job delivering pizzas for Wesley's, at 1116 Bryn Mawr Avenue near Broadway

Morrison appeared to be settling in Marriage was contemplated and his burglary tools were gathering dust Police officers from the CPD's 40th District who were cognizant of his reputation, ticketed him for double-parking his car outside of the pizza joint work place during rush hour In

an effort to persuade the officers to give Morrison, and the other drivers a

"pass," the restaurant owner invited the police to come in and eat free

It was a common way for businessmen to befriend police who could be helpful to them by overlooking trivial matters or just being there when needed At first the privilege was extended only to the sergeant and patrol officers assigned to Bryn Mawr Avenue But eventually the enterprising Morrison was delivering pizzas directly to the 40th District, Foster Avenue

—then known as "Summerdale." It was a convenient arrangement all around

The police officers on duty knew the glib Morrison from the neighborhood, and of course by reputation A man can't escape from his past Sol

Karras, one of the Summerdale cops later named in the infamous

indictment grew up with Morrison and maintained a friendship with him

In a short period of time Morrison had become one of Chicago's cleverest

burglars He learned about safes by visiting Michigan Avenue

showrooms He completed his apprenticeship by posing as a buyer of industrial safes and vaults in order to familiarize himself with the location

of the tumblers, the thickness of steel, and the vulnerabilities of strong boxes At all times he carried with him armor-piercing ammunition

capable of blowing the locks off the most resilient safes With manila rope purchased in 10,000-foot lengths, he fashioned rope ladders to help gain after-hours entry through the roof ventilation system and skylights

Morrison never used the same equipment twice It was his personal quirk

to leave his tools at the scene of the crime

James McGuire, a former Superintendent of the Illinois State Police, and

a retired Chicago Police officer, remembers Morrison's escapades in the city and the North Shore suburb of Evanston

"He was a pretty sharp kid, a cocky little fellow who talked like an old-timer But he was just a kid a kid, with exceptional abilities," McGuire recalls "He liked to open the outer safe at a North Side Walgreens Store That was one of his favorite places There was usually $1,500 and loose change locked inside the safe, and he would stash the money nearby and pick it up the next day Well, a suburban police officer caught him in the act one day going through an air vent He handcuffed him to a telephone pole while he went off in search of a possible accomplice The officer quickly returned after a look around but Richie was gone He had used a secreted handcuff key taped to the back of a religious medal that he wore around his neck to escape."

McGuire, an honest police officer whose career was on the upswing, was assisted by Chicago Detectives Howard Rothgery, Pat Driscoll, John Kettler, and James Heard from the burglary detail in their arrest of

Morrison on the evening July 30, 1959 inside a flat on Sacramento

Avenue while he was out on bond from an earlier pinch As a result of an earlier arrest in the summer of 1958 by detectives from the adjacent suburban Evanston Police Department, the full story of Morrison's

connivance with the "Summerdale" police officers unraveled ever so slowly Morrison confessed to committing commercial burglaries with reported losses of over $100,000 in the City of Chicago alone

Looking back upon the Morrison collar, Jim McGuire states: "We got a tip

he was holed up in this flat on Sacramento Avenue, but he wouldn't open the door We found an open window and climbed through When we entered Richie had a gun - a 38-caliber revolver - but he got scared and threw it down behind the refrigerator."

There seemed to be no limit to the thieving escapades of Morrison, as

investigators probed deeper into his exploits His activities extended north

of the city limits into Evanston His second story jobs compromised the reputation of the entire police department of this city in a scandal that embarrassed the department and ultimately cost Chief Hubert G Kelsh his job

Long before the scandal broke, in June 1958 to be exact, a detail of Evanston Police nearly killed Morrison during one of his nightly forays into the northern suburb Retired Evanston Police Chief William McHugh and his former partner James Walsh (who later served as Chief of the Cook County Police Department) were a part of the response team that apprehended the thief forever known as the "Babbling Burglar."

Several years ago, McHugh told this writer about his own personal

encounter with Morrison "We had a rash of automobile thefts in Evanston and the evidence pointed to Morrison."

"Between relays during a target shoot at the practice range another policeman we knew who also happened to know Morrison told us that this was the guy who was hitting the hell of us in Evanston," added Walsh

"We concluded that this was our prime suspect and heard he was looking for a set of new golf clubs for his next score."

McHugh, Walsh, along with Sergeant Sam Johnson, Officers Al

Breitzman, Dick Braithwaite, and Eddie Tuczyinski, began a two-day stakeout on Forest Avenue, a quiet residential street off of Sheridan Road

in Evanston late one evening They used Officer Ted Arndt's set of new golf clubs as the decoy "We figured that if Morrison was coming in to our town, this would be the route he would most likely travel," McHugh

explains

The clubs were positioned in a station wagon on loan from a local

automobile agency when the headlights of Morrison's mint-green Cadillac convertible were spotted by the detectives who were lying in ambush Morrison was a skilled driver He made a series of deft moves and the heavily armed Evanston officers made theirs, letting loose with a volley of gunfire from a shotgun and a Thompson sub-machine gun The bullets flew wide of the mark

Morrison crouched down low in the car seat and spun away as the bullets whizzed by, striking the trees, parked cars, the curb—everything except their nimble criminal target How badly did these Evanston cops want to kill Morrison? The deadly fury of bullets unleashed on a quiet residential side street in the dead of night endangered citizens, resulted in property damage, and was the kind of reckless police work out-of-control

departments often engaged in when they had something to hide

Fortunately for the "Babbling Burglar" fate intervened and he escaped unhurt Shaken, Morrison abandoned the car on Sheridan Road in

Chicago "All we saw was his tail lights," McHugh recalls "When he took off nobody could see him."

McHugh and Walsh were a team in those days Armed with a search warrant, they entered Morrison's apartment on Lakewood Avenue in the Rogers Park-Edgewater community looking for stolen contraband "Little did we suspect at the time what Morrison was really up to," McHugh sighs "We found a TV worth a small fortune and other expensive items strewn about the apartment." However, their man was not at home When Walsh and McHugh returned a second time the apartment was "cleaned out," completely empty "It was my belief that Richie received a tip from some of his friends in Summerdale that we were coming back," Walsh said

Walsh vividly remembered Morrison's cocky, defiant nature when they eventually located and transported him into the Evanston police station for interrogation and booking "We asked him what he did for a living, and

he told us that he was an 'electronics genius." 'That means I'm not a dumb asshole!' snorted the thief

Shortly afterward, the Morrison case came up for a hearing before Judge Charles Doherty in Branch 44 of the Felony Court at 26th and California Again, Richard Morrison was apparently counting on his friends from the Summerdale police district to pull him out of a legal jam He seemed confident that despite the serious charges stemming from his activities in Evanston, things would be "handled." The fix was in - or so Morrison was led to believe Judge Doherty however, was of another frame of mind He convicted the canny little burglar and sentenced him to two years in prison "Hey! Wait a minute!" Morrison bellowed, casting about the

courtroom for someone to listen "Something is wrong here! I want to talk

to the State's Attorney!"

Snug inside the Cook County Jail, Morrison weighed his options With the prospect of a lengthy prison sentence looming before him, he summoned representatives from the office of the Republican State's Attorney,

Benjamin Adamowski, and told them that he had sensitive information to share about crooked cops in return for a deal—the customary promise of leniency Negotiations continued with the public defender and

Adamowski's right-hand man, Chief Investigator Paul Davis Newey from the State's Attorney's office, until Morrison finally agreed to be placed in a secret witness protection program

For the next fourteen months, the cat burglar enjoyed the comparative luxury of the County Jail witness quarters, complete with free TV, quality food, and special treatment accorded a valuable informant Explained (then) Warden Jack Johnson: "If I put him in with the other prisoners I'll have a corpse on my hands within 24 hours

Ben Adamowski, a former Democratic politician who had his eyes on the bigger prize—the Chicago mayoralty—was slow to grasp the significance

of the enormous political possibilities that lay before him Others sensed that the impending Summerdale Scandal was a trump card to be played

at all costs, and the best chance for the embattled Republicans to

discredit the mayoral regime of the late Richard J Daley

John D Donlevy was a young Assistant State's Attorney assigned to Cook County's Criminal Division during the time when the imprisoned

"Babbling Burglar" first began talking to prosecutors "At first the State's Attorney Adamowski seemed reluctant to do anything He just turned the matter over to a special prosecutor," Donlevy recalls "There was a belief that the case wasn't strong enough to merit prosecution Based on what Newey uncovered, "the decision was eventually made by Adamowski and First Assistant State's Attorney Frank Ferlic to bring it to trial."

The episode in Evanston and the subsequent McHugh-Walsh arrest was one of the major catalysts triggering Summerdale When Morrison

realized that his "clout" was no good down at 26th and California and safely tucked away in the witness protection program, he began profusely talking about his relationship with crooked cops He was dubbed the

"Babbling Burglar" by the slightly jaded and cynical Chicago press corps

As the sordid tale of corruption unfolded, Evanston police officers were marched in one by one in by Adamowski and grilled about their

relationship with Morrison and any ties the department might have had to the thief In their possession the prosecutors had a damaging tape

recording of Morrison discussing alleged payoffs made to Detective Chief

"Ziggy" Wroblewski and Sergeant Bob Keyes The payoffs were

supposedly being made in order to help Morrison avoid an attempted burglary rap

Wroblewski was subsequently charged with obstruction of justice, but was cleared by Judge Duke Slater in a long-winded trial that tested the limits of everyone's patience Criminal defense attorney Harry Busch, one

of Chicago's infamously successful "mob mouthpieces" (a group that also included fellow "B&B Boys" Herb Barsay, Charles Bellows, Mike Brodkin and George Bieber) dragged file carts filled to overflowing with case law Busch was preparing to filibuster the courtroom by citing each and every

precedent on behalf of his client, just prior to a directed verdict of not guilty being handed down

"Ziggy" Wroblewski retired from the Evanston department a few years later and went to work with the American Packaging Corporation Though

he was never charged with a crime, Sergeant Keyes quit the department some years later to take a security job with the Orrington Hotel "Morrison knew that anything he said about these officers would be construed as the gospel truth by the State's Attorney's office," Walsh strongly believed

"Clearly he was out to get even and was willing to destroy their careers in the process Nailing a cop always gets headlines."

Others saw matters differently, and the process of sweeping away the Evanston "questionables" was well underway

Chief Kelsh was "crucified in the press" according to McHugh's point of view and was replaced by Burt Giddons who was brought in from outside the department Several Evanston Police officers who believed the

department needed reforming went before the City Council to air their grievances Kelsh was gone a short time later Burt Giddons, possessing the ever powerful image of a reformer, sent a message that the days of collegiality between detectives, uniformed officers and underworld

characters like Morrison was over

Like O.W Wilson in Chicago (who was recruited as a desperation

measure by a fretful Mayor Daley in the weeks following the Summerdale revelations), Giddons faced an uphill climb for respect He ushered the Evanston P.D into a new era until leaving the job in 1969

"Summerdale had a hell of an impact, not just the Chicago and Evanston Police Departments, but nationwide," McHugh sighed "After the public became aware of Morrison's involvement with the cops, we would go into

a restaurant and some wise guy would ask us where he could pick up a cheap TV It was a profound embarrassment to the profession and we all suffered."

In McHugh's day, few people viewed police work as a "profession," or took it seriously "Very few officers attended college There was no

concerted effort to train and properly educate new officers We were provided a notebook, a nightstick, and a hat shield by the department and told to hit the streets We purchased our uniforms from the Fair Store in downtown Chicago, and we were assigned to work with a senior officer who disappeared most of the time," McHugh adds Times changed and Summerdale began that process in Chicago

At the very heart of the unfolding Summerdale Scandal were eight patrol officers from the 40th District who were singled out for wrongdoing and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law

Allan Brinn, Frank Faraci, Patrick Groark, Jr., Alex Karras and his twin brother Sol, Henry T Mulea, Al Clements, and Peter Beeftink These men came to symbolize all that the rottenness of the Chicago P.D during that lamentable era, and a culture of corruption that had flourished since the mid-nineteenth century These officers were the "Summerdale Eight" in the eyes of the media, though the involvement of Beeftink and Mulea was only marginal and there were many more officers from outlying districts who could have been just as deeply involved but were fortunate to

escape detection

Groark was the son of a respected Chicago Police captain Faraci, who was suspended once before for surrendering his weapon to a 16-year-old robber, lived outside the city limits in Skokie By all accounts Faraci and the Karras twins were the ringleaders of the burglary gang They acted as point men and scoped out the jobs by serving as lookouts while Morrison sabotaged alarm systems and broke into retail stores late at night On one occasion, Morrison blatantly drove around the neighborhood in a marked squad car listening to the dispatch calls while two officers looted

a store themselves

With the threat of snow hanging in the air, and the winter skies a leaden gray, Al Karras imagined himself sailing on his boat in the balmy Lake Michigan breezes of late spring But first he had to have a new outboard motor, so he ordered Morrison to case the Anderson Marine Sports Supply Store on Broadway and report his findings back to the ring It was

a busy commercial area with many after-hours saloons and heavy foot traffic Morrison was understandably apprehensive about making the score

Several months passed, and Karras was growing impatient "Listen Dick, you've been stalling on Marine Supplies and spring is here now, and tonight you're going to open that place up for us!" Morrison and one of his partners named Floyd Wilde, agreed to smash the plate glass windows with a brick, but they refused to go inside "You'll have to get the motors and whatever else you guys want because I don't want to be in that place with the front window broken out," he told them Karras and Pat Groark carried the outboard motor through the shattered display window and no one was the wiser except of course, the smirking Morrison who could not believe the gall of these men

The Summerdale burglaries went on for a year and three months

Insurance premiums rose sharply for the merchants trying to conduct business in the stricken Edgewater neighborhood of Chicago Numerous complaints were voiced to Captain Herman Dorf, commander of the 40th District, and (then) Chicago Police Commissioner Timothy O'Connor Dorf was unwilling and did not lift a finger He was counting the days to a carefree retirement

According to Morrison's sworn statements, Dorf had received a cut of the bribe money paid to Officers Glenn Cherry and John Peterson—the first

of the crooked Summerdale cops to appear before a judge During the subsequent investigation Captain Dorf refused to submit to a polygraph test He handed in his resignation and said he was moving to California and would not be a party to any investigation that might draw him into the line of fire

Commissioner O'Connor was a figurehead appointee powerless to

control the entrenched police bureaucracy of the City of Chicago In the pre-Summerdale era, real policing power rested with the captains in the districts, and the politicians who backed them—not the Commissioner who knew only what he was suppose to know from his daily briefings from command personnel

The late Captain Frank Pape, who worked with O'Connor for many years, posed an interesting conundrum to this writer "O'Connor was an honest man, but was he a moral man?" In other words, was his fear of

punishment the overriding factor in the decision to resist graft, or could he possibly be corrupted if he were secure in the belief that he would not be caught?

It was an amoral time and hundreds, possibly thousands of city and suburban police officers were on the take because of chronically low wages and poor working conditions That however is not an acceptable alibi for acting in a manner contrary to the public good

The world that these men knew so well changed dramatically on January

15, 1960, when a team of detectives, hand-picked by Chief S.A

Investigator Paul Newey were given sealed orders directing them to the homes of the eight Summerdale burglars They embarked on a mission that would rock the police and political world of Chicago to its knees

By 4:00 A.M the next morning, the bleary-eyed cops were all under arrest and in custody, being secretly grilled by Adamowski's men inside the swank Union League Club Walter Spirko, a veteran press reporter assigned to the police beat, maintained an all-night vigil at a nearby coffee shop where he was able to pry enough information out of the

closed-mouthed investigators to break the story in the morning Sun-Times

In the wake of Morrison's confession, the shocking arrest of the eight cop burglars, the impounding of thousands of dollars worth of stolen TVs, furniture, and recreational items, the canny Mayor Daley cast about for a scapegoat to take the fall

On January 23rd, Police Commissioner Tim O'Connor, by virtue of his position in the chain of command was forced to step down before he could be fired "Tim was always telling me how he went home at night and watched TV instead of running around getting into trouble," Mayor Daley sneered "I should have asked him why he wasn't running around checking on his policemen at night instead of sitting home and watching TV."

It was good political posturing and a crafty public statement coming from

a man who knew the system and played it like the political pro he was For perhaps the only time in his political career, Richard J Daley found himself in a precarious position and in serious jeopardy of relinquishing City Hall to the Republicans and the eternally ambitious Adamowski The next mayoral election was still three years away, but Republican

Governor, William Stratton, in lockstep with the Cook County Republican State's Attorney, at last had a boilerplate issue to lay before disgruntled voters It was one that would not disappear with a simple wave of the politician's pinky-ring finger, or through the application of colorful Daley-esque rhetoric The Republicans knew they had their chance and they moved forward with dispatch

Since the Civil War, succeeding Chicago Mayors would answer the clamor of the reformers by shuttling the offending district commanders and inspectors to outlying areas of the city following a damaging front-page expose of malfeasance After the usual reprimands and

suspensions were doled out, things would generally quiet down and the department would return to its pre-scandal levels until next time It was a laissez-faire atmosphere the politicians sanctioned in order to keep control of their patronage and placate constituents at the same time

Summerdale, however, required much more than the usual approach Daley understood the hazardous political realities and appointed a blue-ribbon panel to step outside the inner circle of his administrators, ward committeemen, and the entrenched 11th Ward police cadre to select a new Police Commissioner who would lend an air of professionalism,