Community businessman Alan Amberg was attacked around 11:45 p.m. July 18 near his Oak Park home. He suffered a broken nose
and a cut needing stitches in his eyelid.
But Amberg, perhaps best known as the founder of Lesbigay Radio and now head of Diverse Communications & Health Media
Foundation, is not backing down after his attack. In fact, it has moved into action Amberg and his partner Patrick Beyrow, as well as
their GLBT and straight neighbors. They are forming a Neighborhood Watch, and are strategizing with police and political leaders
about how to make the area safer.
Amberg said the attack was not anti-gay, but rather is part of a pattern of crimes in the southeast part of the suburb, near the town
of Cicero, south of the Eisenhower Expressway near Austin and Roosevelt. It is a gentrifying area, but also still integrated. Amberg,
who is white, does not feel the crime was racially motivated, and he wants to make sure police and community response does not
divide along racial lines.
The incident occurred when Amberg came across three teens who were walking an unleashed pit bull puppy in the middle of the
street. 'It was me confronting teens who were behaving badly and badly treating a dog,' Amberg said. He told them to walk on the
sidewalk and put the dog on a leash.
Amberg said the teens circled him, and he ran to a neighbor's porch. They ran when he screamed for help—but not until after
Amberg's nose was broken and his eyelid gashed.
This area of Oak Park was mostly built in the early part of the last century. Many GLBT families are now calling it home, and
neighbors are making an effort to know one another, Amberg said. 'It is punky teens causing this and other problems in the
neighborhood,' Amberg said.
When Amberg lived in Rogers Park, similar problems escalated into a racial profiling situation where the adults (whites) were
afraid to talk with the teens (Blacks), and the police began to confront any kids of color over a certain age, he said. 'We do not want
that to happen in our neighborhood. It is a racially integrated neighborhood,' Amberg said.
'The village in general has trouble with teenagers,' he added. 'We're trying to set a tone here. These young folks are cowards—
we're the grown ups and they're children. It is amazing for me—I was the sissy kid who people used to beat up on. Now I am not
afraid. They're just children. We're setting a tone here—the rules of respect everybody has to follow. The nice part is that it seems to
be a cross section of neighbors who are concerned, it is not a white or Black thing.'
