“Shots fired–hostage situation,” says Larry Schreiner, mimicking the flat police-radio voice that lured him to this very corner last fall. “I pull up and park right here,” he remembers. We are sitting in Schreiner’s Mercedes at the northwest corner of Webster and Hoyne. Schreiner is spinning his tale in his favorite spot in the world: behind the wheel on a Chicago side street.
Schreiner may have trouble with syntax, his pronouns often don’t have antecedents, and he’ll invent any word he needs, but he’s probably Chicago’s most prolific communicator. Is there a person in this city who hasn’t seen Schreiner’s footage on television or heard his radio reports? Anytime there’s a gas leak in an elementary school, a shooting on a quiet suburban street, or a fireman gagging from smoke at a factory blaze, Schreiner will be on the scene. He’s a cowboy in a car, roaming the metropolitan area in search of crime and distress.
Schreiner was born 49 years ago in Chicago. His natural father died before little Larry, an only child, could talk. His mother went to work in City Hall, where her clout was the 45th Ward boss, Charlie Weber. The Schreiners lived across Western Avenue from Riverview. “I could never go there because we didn’t have enough money,” Schreiner recalls. Then he corrects himself. He went to the fabled amusement park once a year on Charlie Weber Day. His mother would bring home the free ticket but Schreiner wasn’t all that enthusiastic. “All year I’d have to listen to the noise. After living across the street from it, the novelty wore off,” he says.
An obedient son, he traveled to Memphis to attend Christian Brothers College. “I went to college because I was told to go to college. I was not a student. I was horrible. I couldn’t sit and read a book. I don’t brag about it but I can’t remember the last book I read,” he shrugs.
Schreiner was assigned to beat 2023 in the old Summerdale (now Foster Avenue) district. Four years earlier, in 1960, the district had been rocked by the biggest police scandal till then in Chicago history. It was learned that Summerdale patrolmen had been operating a burglary ring. The cops would provide protection and sometimes even transportation to crooks looting homes. In reaction, Mayor Richard J. Daley appointed a new superintendent, civilian criminologist O. W. Wilson.
Schreiner worked at Summerdale for nine months and was transferred to Intelligence–“a plush unit,” he says.
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In the old days, even well-known politicians could be fire fans. As a youngster Schreiner had met election board commissioner Sidney Holzman at the fire alarm office. “He would take me out to lunch every now and then,” Schreiner remembers.
