News of three Harvey police officers indicted on federal drug conspiracy charges came as no surprise to many residents of the south suburb who said this type of behavior has been going on for years.
News of three Harvey police officers indicted on federal drug conspiracy charges came as no surprise to many residents of the south suburb who said this type of behavior has been going on for years.
On Dec. 2, three Harvey police officers, Dwayne Williams, 42, Archie Stallworth, 36, and James Engram Jr., 41, and one civilian employee Antoine Dudley, 28, were among 15 law enforcement officers indicted on federal drug conspiracy charges.
The indictment accuses the men of acting as armed security guards for drug dealers including an undercover FBI agent who posed as a drug dealer.
Three days later, the FBI executed a search warrant for the Harvey Police Department as part of an “ongoing investigation into corruption,” said Randall Samborn, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago. He declined to give any details regarding the search warrant or its investigation.
U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said the defendants were paid muscle for drug dealers and are a disgrace to law enforcement.
Attempts to contact all four defendants for comment were unsuccessful at press time.
Sandra Alvarado, a spokeswoman for the City of Harvey, said all four men were terminated.
Acting Harvey Police Chief Denard Eaves said he will not tolerate any rouge cops.
“This office takes the oath of the badge very seriously. The Harvey Police Department and the City of Harvey do not condone any type of corruption or illegal activity,” he said.
“Law enforcement officers are sworn to uphold the laws of Illinois and should be held to a higher standard.”
Like a number of other south suburbs, Harvey has seen its Black population rise over the last 10 years. The suburb has a population of 30,000 with Blacks making up 23,871, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Harvey residents said they do not trust their police and are fearful whenever they encounter them.
“I was pulled over this summer for speeding by a Harvey police officer. But instead of him writing me a ticket, he proceeded to hit on me,” Dena Graves, 39, recalls. “When I refused his advances, he took his flashlight and broke my rear, tail light and slashed my back tires. Then he wrote me a ticket for speeding and driving an unsafe vehicle.”
And Tina Funches, 18, said that in June, she was sitting in the backseat of her boyfriend’s car kissing him when a Harvey police officer pulled up and caught them.
“The officer told my boyfriend he could go to jail for a lewd act in public,” Funches told the Defender. “The officer then asked to see his driver’s license, but when my boyfriend tried to take his license out of his wallet, the officer snatched his wallet from him and told him to go wait by the car. After a few minutes, the officer came back over to the car, gave my boyfriend his wallet and said ‘go home.’ And it wasn’t until the officer drove off that we realized he had taken the $40 that was in (my boyfriend’s) wallet.”
The latest indictment against Harvey police officers is nothing new.
In 2005, a Harvey police officer was among 15 people charged in a federal indictment for income tax evasion after failing to report income earned while working a second job as a security guard at a Harvey strip club.
“I guess you can say these officers are guilty of the same thing because I doubt if they reported the money drug dealers paid them to protect and serve them,” said Augusta Fredericks, 71, a 40-year Harvey resident. “
Maybe someday Harvey will return to its glory days and be a suburb where families come to live instead of criminals like drug dealers and dishonest cops.”
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