Once, when the Chicago Police Department raided the headquarters of the El Rukn gang, “We put Jim up front,” said a former partner, retired Officer Cornell V. Webb. “Jim always led the way.’’
In the 1970s, “He was instrumental in capturing a fellow who killed a police officer,” said Webb. ”He and I dressed as bums waiting for the guy to pop up, and we caught him. Jim was one of the best. We walked the streets looking for [the suspect], walked the street dressed as bums. They didn’t know us from the man in the moon. People that liked us gave us information.”
For two decades, Mr. Raspberry battled kidney disease. There were times that he was undergoing dialysis three times a week, four hours each time, then returning to police work after a session. “He was strong, determined,” said his wife, Joan Raspberry. A kidney transplant about a decade ago gave him a break of several years. But the donated organ stopped functioning, and he returned to the dialysis machine a few years ago.
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