KIDNAPPING DEATH UNDERSCORES CONSEQUENCES OF RISKY CHOICES

There are all kinds of ways that you can avoid becoming the victim of a
violent crime.

For example, don't borrow money from a loan shark. Don't pick up a
prostitute. Don't walk through a bad neighborhood draped in diamond
jewelry. Don't stiff a bookmaker. Don't leave the keys in your car. Don't
get mixed up with people who sell drugs.

But don't take my word for it.

If David Steeves could, he'd tell you himself.

A month ago, Steeves probably considered himself as invincible as any other
19 year old.

But then he took one of those risks that increase the chance that you will
be robbed, beaten up or worse.

Of course, sometimes people become crime victims without engaging in any
risky behavior, while just going about their business.

They are known as innocent victims.

For most of last week, Steeves was thought to be such an innocent victim.
It started on April 8, when the Elgin teenager called 911 claiming that he
was in the trunk of a car and had been kidnapped.

Steeves cried out for help and then the line was dead, according to Elgin
police.

There was a frantic search for the young man in the days that followed. It
was all over the newspapers and reported extensively on TV and radio.

People talked about the sad, outrageous story on buses and street corners
and in cafes and coffee shops, and wondered how such a thing could happen.

Why would a good kid, a student at Elgin Community College, who was minding
his own business on a Friday night, suddenly be forced into the back of his
mother's car that he was driving, and abducted?

The morning after Steeves' cell phone call for help, one of his size 13 gym
shoes was found on an Elgin driveway. Things weren't looking good. The
mystery grew and so did the news coverage.

The police figured it had started as a robbery and turned into abduction.
Publicly, they were hoping to find Steeves alive. Privately, they knew he
was probably dead.

On Thursday, the teenager's body was found on the southeast side of
Rockford. He was dead in the trunk of his mother's car. He had been shot
twice, in the leg and neck. Authorities said he died instantly. Still, the
mystery of how he got there, why and who was behind it continued.

By early Friday, two men were in custody and some answers started to take
shape.

The suspects, Robert Guyton, 24 and Armin Henderson, 25, both had criminal
records. That was no surprise; people don't just wake up in the morning and
decides to kidnap somebody off the street.

Not only were both of the suspects convicted criminals, they were also
fugitives from the law. Henderson was wanted on an armed robbery warrant
and for violating parole. Guyton, a convicted auto thief, was wanted for
retail theft, drug possession and obstruction of justice.

Coincidentally, at the same time Steeves' body was found last week and the
backgrounds of the suspects became apparent, there was another major news
event taking place. Operation: FALCON was an effort coordinated by the U.S.
Marshals Service to arrest fugitives across the country.

Beginning April 4, four days before David Steeves was kidnapped in Elgin, a
coast-to-coast dragnet of violent fugitives began. By the end of the day
Thursday, the day Steeves' corpse was discovered in a car trunk, more than
10,000 wanted men and women had been picked up; more than 400 in the
Chicago area.

But Robert Guyton and Armin Henderson were not among the violent fugitives
corralled in the impressive federal sweeps.

For a moment last week, it seemed to be a perfect "who to blame" story.
There were the feds making a big show of rounding up all these dangerous
fugitives, while at the same time two guys who were fugitives had snatched
what seemed to be an innocent victim off the street and killed him in cold
blood.

Then on Friday, Elgin police fit the last piece of the Steeves puzzle in
place. The teenager had been involved in a "drug transaction", just before
the suspects allegedly kidnapped him, took $300 from him and killed him.

"It's just senseless," said Elgin police Sgt. Glenn Theriault.

"I believe he was an innocent victim," stated Elgin's interim Police Chief
Robert Beeter.

Murder is always senseless. Nobody ever deserves to be murdered. What
happened to David Steeves, described by friends as "an avid golfer and
baseball player who attended church regularly," was awful.

He was a victim.

But he wasn't an innocent victim.

He chose some risky behavior, where the stakes are often determined by
people with guns and careless attitudes.

We now know that Steeves himself was an accused drug criminal. He was
facing charges from last December in Carpentersville, where police had
arrested him driving with a quarter-pound of marijuana.

Steeves' family said in a statement, "We hope, if nothing else, this can be
a learning experience for us all in one way or another."

It was for David Steeves. Unfortunately, it was his last.