Across a 35-year career with the Chicago Police Department that culminated as deputy chief of the narcotics and gang investigation section, Michael Cronin was an expert on West Side street gangs, and he cultivated informants who ultimately helped put behind bars some of the city’s most notorious criminals.
“He had a knack for talking bad guys into flipping on their fellow gang members,” said retired Chicago police Superintendent Philip Cline, now the executive director of the Chicago Police Memorial Foundation. “If Mike was after you, you better surrender because he never gave up until you were in handcuffs.”
Cronin, 81, died of natural causes Nov. 9 at his home in Huntley, his brother, Jim said. Cronin, who had been battling atrial fibrillation, pulmonary fibrosis and dementia, also had a home in Fort Myers, Florida, his brother said.
Born in Chicago in 1943 to Irish immigrant parents, Cronin grew up in the Edgewater neighborhood and attended DePaul Academy, where he played football and, in 1961, was named All-City by the Tribune. After high school, Cronin took a job as a CTA mechanic and also played semipro football for the Monaco Colts and semipro baseball for the Playboys.
Stocky and classified by the military as 4-F because of his weight, Cronin watched friends from his neighborhood serve in Vietnam. After his best friend, Jerry Hanrahan, was killed in Vietnam, Cronin quit his CTA job, slimmed down and enlisted in the Marines to serve in Vietnam. Cronin was assigned to a Combined Action Platoon, where he moved from village to village, training the local militia and conducting counter-guerrilla operations with the Indigenous forces.
After five months and 110 patrols and ambushes, however, Cronin’s luck ran out. On a beach on the South China Sea, Cronin stepped on a land mine, losing his eyesight and most of his left foot.
Although Cronin’s eyesight did return, doctors insisted that his left foot be amputated. After learning to walk on crutches, Cronin got a prosthetic foot and returned to work for the CTA. However, Cronin still dreamed of being a Chicago cop, and a friend, Joe Mackey, who was a police bodyguard for Mayor Richard J. Daley, made the case for Cronin, who already had passed the Police Department’s written test.
The first Mayor Daley advocated for Cronin, and in 1971, Cronin reported to the Police Academy, where he passed the physical and the agility test. Soon afterward, he was admitted to the Police Academy and began his career with the Police Department.
“I never knew the mayor. He didn’t know me. He didn’t know my father. I never met him in my life, and we never exchanged a word in person,” Cronin told the Tribune in 1989. “I never got to tell Mayor Daley, ‘Thank you for the chance.’”
Cronin’s entire career involved working in aggressive plainclothes units on the street. Within six months of joining the force, Cronin joined an 11th District tactical team on the West Side, one of four tactical units of which he was part.
By the early 1980s, Cronin had become a gang crimes specialist, and he was a recognizable figure on the West Side, both by his name and reputation but also by his face, seen on street corners and in gangways from which he often would pop out.
“Out there, there are very few heroes and very few legends about anyone except for big gang leaders, rich drug dealers and a few policemen,” Cronin told the Tribune in 1989. “I’ve been around here a long time, so they know my name.”
One of Cronin’s long-standing nemesis was Vice Lords kingpin Willie Lloyd. Colleagues said Cronin’s work was instrumental in convicting Lloyd for weapons violations in the 1980s and 1990s before Lloyd decided to leave gang leadership behind.
Even so, Cronin felt the weight of his task: cleaning up the West Side of street gang dominance.
“If anyone tells you we are winning, they are lying,” he told the Tribune in 1989. “All we are doing is trying to maintain control of the streets…The tragedy is with the good people out there who are prisoners in their own neighborhood,” he said.
Cronin’s approach was old-fashioned police work: long hours, never letting up on his quarry and listening to people from the neighborhood, including potential informants.
“I was always a very good listener. … Your best source of information is the person in the back seat,” Cronin told the Tribune in 2006.
He was also an expert on writing affidavits for state and federal wiretaps, Cline said.
“Mike Cronin was the best street cop I ever met,” Cline said. “He had a great reputation and younger gangbangers exaggerated his size. You would think he was 6-foot-6 and 300 pounds.”
Cronin was a “copper’s cop” who “every gangbanger on the West Side knew,” according to Brian Sexton, a former longtime gang prosecutor in the Cook County state’s attorney’s office. “He knew all the players and knew everybody on the West Side. He made it his business, and they all knew that he knew, so they kind of held him in and respected him,” Sexton said. Cronin’s expertise included understanding warring gang factions and what motivated those beefs, Sexton added.
Cronin received the 1996 Law Enforcement Award from the Illinois State Bar Association. In 2003, Cline promoted Cronin to commander of gang intelligence.
Cronin retired in 2006, although he returned to the department as a civilian consultant for a time.During retirement, Cronin enjoyed riding his bike, playing pickleball and bocce ball, relaxing in northern Wisconsin and spending winters in Fort Myers.
In 2007, former Tribune reporter Anne Keegan, a good friend of Cronin, self-published a book that was a look at the West Side from Cronin’s perspective, titled “On the Street Doing Life: The West Side of Chicago Through the Eyes of a Cop Named ‘Cronie.’”
Cronin never married. In addition to his brother, Cronin is survived by a sister, Joanne Michals.
Services were held.
Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.