Mouthy Macho

Vintage Royko | Chicago Sun-Times | Oct. 28, 1982

Whatever happened to the people, places and issues that columnist Mike Royko went after -- or championed -- during his legendary run? Today and in coming days, we'll check back in with some of Royko's best columns and get you up to speed.

Bob Angone is not the kind of man you'd call a sissy. At least not to his face.

He has been a street cop for about 18 years, doing just about every kind of dangerous job that work involves. He's an ex-Marine and, at 42, looks hard enough to go back into combat.

And he's emotionally strong enough to have become a widower a year ago and to have pulled himself back on his feet and to his work.

So it has been disconcerting for him to pick up his home phone and hear strangers say: "Hey, Angone, what are you, some kind of f---ing fairy liberal?"

Yes, people have been saying that to Angone. At a safe distance and with the anonymity a telephone provides.

The reason? It really won't surprise you.

Angone is a sergeant and he's an active member of the Chicago Police Sergeants Association. He has a flair for writing, and so he became editor of a monthly newsletter, called Chevron, that is published for members of the sergeants association.

The newsletter prints stories about retirements, promotions, salary negotiations and other such matters.

And it prints editorials, written by Angone.

Most of the editorials have to do with police work. But once in a while, Angone has the urge to go beyond police matters.

And in a recent issue he did just that.

He had been troubled by the recent killings of five Chicago policemen. He had known them all, worked with some of them, and felt their deaths personally.

So he wrote an editorial on handguns. It didn't flatly come out in favor of handgun controls. But that was its thrust.

Then he went on furlough.

When he came back he was no longer editor of the Chevron newsletter. The board of directors of the sergeants association had voted him out.

"They threw me out. I was shocked," he said. "The president of the organization told me that while I was on vacation, the gun people saw the editorial and went nuts and put pressure on the board, and I was no longer the editor.

"I couldn't believe it. They voted me out 5-3. And the guy who was really hysterical about me was a guy who is always the one who consoles the cops' widows when their husbands have been gunned down.

"If the gun people had called and said they wanted a rebuttal printed, I would have been glad to do it. But instead, they got me thrown out as editor.

"That was bad enough. But somebody must have given my phone number out, and the phone calls starting coming, day and night.

"They were saying things like: 'Hey, what are you, some kind of f----, fairy, liberal j-- off?'

"The funny thing is, I know more about guns than most of them do. I'm one of 35 or 40 guys in the department who are trained in heavy weapons. We're called out when there's a sniper holed up.

"I'm sure that some of the guys who were calling me were sitting in safe, clean offices and have never had to go up against somebody with an automatic weapon.

"And I noticed something else. They all sounded the same. It was as if they had been told what to say, as if they were reading it. They all said the same thing: 'Hey, are you some kind of f----.' It was as if it was organized."

(It usually is. Sad to say, many of the pro-handgun people are so lacking in imagination that they can't think of original obscenities. When they launch a phone campaign against someone, they have to be told to call some a f------ this or that.)

"It's hard to believe that people react this way against somebody just because his views are different than theirs. It's one thing to discuss it rationally, it's another to phone somebody and call him names."

Welcome to the club, Sgt. Angone. Anybody who crosses the gun lobby learns to expect this kind of response.

I've been called fairy, fruit, sissy, girlie, nancy, commie, pinko, candy a--. And those are their nicer words.

What I've always found entertaining is that somebody who doesn't feel secure without a gun under his pillow or on his nightstand thinks he is macho, and that somebody who can survive in one of America's toughest cities without a gun is a pansy.

But I'm afraid the irony is lost on these hair-trigger heroes.

What bothers me about Sgt. Angone's experience is that he experienced this harassment from the gun nuts for something that is read by only 1,300 police sergeants and their families.

That's not fair. So to make it worthwhile for him, I've decided to print part of his editorial in this paper, which has about 2 million readers. And this column will go to another 200 papers, with millions more readers. Here is what Angone wrote:

"In 1976 in Philadelphia, a mysterious epidemic took the lives of 29 Americans. . . . The disease's symptoms have since struck many others and it has become known as 'Legionnaire's Disease.'

"The nation's doctors, scientists, chemists and scores of others banded together to identify and defeat this disease. We value human life too much to allow it to go on killing.

"In our country, and in Chicago, we also have an epidemic. It is one that exists on an even greater scale. But surprisingly, we have had no great coming together to defeat this particular epidemic. It is one that we can see and identify very clearly. The handguns.

"It kills and maims faster than any disease known to man.

"We policemen know that the victim and assailant are a daily part of our lives. The list of victims goes on and on. It includes presidents, paupers, police officers and even a pope.

"Most cops agree that one of the most important qualities in our profession is common sense. And common sense tells us that taking the guns away from those who would do us harm would no longer put such dangerous individuals in a position to commit a brutal act."

There's much more, but you get his idea.

Sgt. Angone works long, tough, dangerous hours. So it isn't right that he should be awakened by faceless, nameless voices spouting banal obscenities.

So to those who have called him, I offer a modest proposal.

Call me and identify yourself. I'll set up a meeting between you -- you rugged tough guy, you -- and Sgt. Angone.

In some quiet place.

Then you can call him those names right to his face.

C'mon macho gun-man. Let's do it.

And I'll cover all side bets.

Within 24 hours of Royko's column running, Angone had his editor's job back. And the angry calls were soon replaced by grateful ones. Letters from around the world also piled up, praising him for his stance.

Angone went on to write dozens of op-ed pieces for the Sun-Times and other papers. One was read into the Congressional Record.

"Having Mike Royko come to your defense was like having Greg Maddux pitch for your Little League team," Angone, 67, said Tuesday.

The column, he says, changed his life. He even credits it with helping him get the job as coordinator of the the police department's Hostage, Barricade, Terrorist team. They knew he'd negotiate exhaustively before bullets flew, Angone figures.

He retired in 1997 as a lieutenant -- and hasn't changed his tune on gun control. It breaks his heart, he says, to see the killing continue.

And, no, no tough guys ever took Royko up on the challenge.

"I wanted to see their faces," Angone said. "No one had the [nerve] to come forward."