Police Supt. Garry McCarthy declared war on the Maniac Latin Disciples after two young girls were shot in a Northwest Side park earlier this month.
The shooter was a member of the gang and was gunning for rival Latin Kings when the girls, ages 2 and 7, were wounded on June 8, prosecutors said. The younger girl was grazed in the head and the 7-year-old was seriously wounded in the back.
“We’re going to obliterate that gang,” McCarthy told a roomful of police supervisors shortly after the shooting. “Every one of their locations has to get blown up until they cease to exist.”
Two weeks later, 120 Maniac Latin Disciples have been arrested and seven guns recovered in what police are describing as phase one of their effort to cripple the gang of 300 to 500 members.
“We’re asking the state’s attorney’s office to prosecute them to the fullest,” said Nick Roti, chief of the Organized Crime Division. “We’re going to put them out of business.”
Of the gang members arrested since the shooting, 19 remained in jail while the others posted bond.
McCarthy’s war on the Maniac Latin Disciples follows an effort last year to punish other West Side gangs. They were warned by then-police Supt. Jody Weis that they would become targets of a crackdown if one of their members committed a murder. Sixty members of the Black Souls and 100 members of the Traveling Vice Lords were arrested on federal and state charges.
McCarthy said he supports that strategy. “When groups engage in violence, they have to understand there will be consequences,” he said. “This is not going to stop.”
Antonio Bucio is the alleged Maniac Latin Disciples member charged in the June 8 shooting of the two girls. His face is tattooed with a letter “D” sprouting devil’s horns. Prosecutors said Bucio admitted to shooting at rival gang members at Avondale Park, which is north of Belmont and west of Kimball near the Kennedy Expy. Police said they have recovered the gun used in the shooting.
@chicago sun times
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