U.S. Targets Illegal Gun Sales by Dealers in Suburbs

CHICAGO —  Federal prosecutors have launched what they called the nation’s first concerted attack on suburban gun dealers who arm city gangs, announcing charges Wednesday against 13 buyers and sellers.

Owners and employees of five suburban gun shops and two of the shops themselves were accused of supplying guns to “straw purchasers” with clean police records who were standing in for the actual buyers.

Authorities say gang members with long rap sheets use the method to get around state laws barring convicted criminals from buying guns.

While handgun sales are illegal within Chicago’s city limits, officials say the gangs can get them easily in nearby suburbs.

“The message is very simple,” U.S. Atty. Scott Lassar said. “If you violate federal gun laws, you’re going to prison.”

Despite its handgun sales ban, Chicago is awash in gun violence, much of it attributed to drug-selling street gangs with thousands of members, such as the Gangster Disciples and the Vice Lords.

In 1998, Chicago recorded 704 homicides, 536 of them by gun, police spokesman Pat Camden said. Gangs members were responsible for 182 homicides, all but four involving guns.

A 1998 undercover investigation by Chicago police produced videotapes and other evidence that suburban dealers knowingly sell guns to straw purchasers. That investigation prompted Mayor Richard M. Daley to file a $433-million lawsuit in February against a dozen suburban gun shops and the firearms industry.

Four of the gun shops whose owners and employees were charged in the indictments announced Wednesday were identified in the same police investigation.

The indictments charged owners and employees of shops in the suburbs of Franklin Park, Elmwood Park, Melrose Park, New Lenox and Oak Lawn.

The indictments charged that some of the owners and employees sold guns to individuals not eligible to buy them. In other cases, attempts were made to hide the identity of the buyers with falsified receipts and forms for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

In one case, Terrace Hampton, 29, of Chicago, is charged with possessing a gun with the serial number removed and making straw purchases of 84 handguns in 1997 and 1998.

Prosecutors said Kelvin Jones, 31, of Glendale Heights, bought 186 guns since July 1998, either directly or through straw buyers. Just since May, he has allegedly directed the purchase of 150 guns, later resold for profit.