By Leah Eskin
Proactive, that is, because Harvard has no gang problem. Harvard High School counts fewer than a dozen students who claim to hang with gangs. Collectively they’ve managed one fistfight. Even police officer Les Lunsmann, whose career is devoted to gangbusting in McHenry County, admits Harvard is pretty much gang-free.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Fine logic. Unless, of course, you consider dressing funny your God-given right as an American.
“He was representing,” explains Lunsmann, team leader for the North Central Narcotic Task Force Gang Unit. According to Lunsmann, Gaut admitted he was a member of “the Action Packed Gangster Disciples.” Gaut says it ain’t so. “There’s the Action Packed football cards–I’ve got those,” he offers with a smirk. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine Gaut, a soft-spoken kid who then hit neither the five-foot mark nor the 100-pound measure, as a street tough. “If he’s a gang member, I’m in the wrong business,” says Gaut’s equally mild mannered attorney, Charles Weech. “I should be a gang member too.” Lunsmann warned Gaut that the black and blue of his Duke jacket suspiciously resembled the black and blue of some street gangs. But he booked Gaut for a different offense: wearing the Star of David.
“Known gang colors” include black and blue, gold and black, red and black, just about the whole color wheel. As Gregory says, “Eventually we’re all going to look like the Good Humor Man or risk being arrested.”
The city concurs. “The right to express the gang colors and emblems pales in comparison to the violence that gangs cause in a community,” argued city attorney David McArdle. Judge Floeter seemed to buy that line of reasoning. At a bench trial (he denied the motion to dismiss) he found Gaut guilty, placed him under 30 days supervision, and fined him $25 plus court costs. Weech appealed.
