Ford Heights is a rough town. In 1989 the far south-side community of less than 6,000 won the title of poorest suburb in the country–for the second year in a row. The poverty level is nearly 40 percent; unemployment is more than 40 percent. Neighboring areas, such as Chicago Heights and Sauk Village are reviving, but in Ford Heights only a few operating stores stand at the main intersection. Beyond them, shuttered buildings quickly give way to small dilapidated houses on side streets that generally run a few blocks and then peter off into scrub grass.
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In its neighborhoods one business is thriving: the cocaine trade. And it has generated a crime problem that has overwhelmed the financially strapped police force. Frustrated officers in the department–which until recently was reduced to a single squad car–have also had to deal with persistent allegations of corruption, the most recent of which is that some of them were involved with a local drug ring. A slew of authorities, from the county sheriff’s police up the FBI, are said to be investigating members of the force as well as the former police chief Jack Davis, who happens to be the current mayor’s husband.
That February a younger man named Michael Clerk was found murdered near the house of Floyd Bryant, an alleged local drug dealer. Bryant, who found the body, said that Clerk had worked for him. He was a suspect in the case, but no charges were pressed.
Following Bryant’s death, speculation has grown that Bryant and Davis were partners in a drug ring and that the relationship had deteriorated into a turf war, which resulted in the string of murders. Public defenders have been doing much of the speculating, in part, perhaps, because it is in the interest of Ulysses Jackson to demonstrate that the Ford Heights police could have been protecting Floyd Bryant in the murder of Michael Clerk. Henry Lowery’s case would also be helped if it could be shown that Davis was working with Bryant, which would undercut Davis’s credibility if he testified against Lowery.
The village government suspended Davis following Bryant’s death last September, but he returned to work a few months ago. village officials point out that no formal charges have been made against him,though they say they anticipate changes in the department. In May Mayor Bryant, who declines to elaborate on her husband’s role in the department, swore in a new police chief, Selester Gilty. “We expect there will be some reorganization under our new chief,” she says.
