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Mayor Nathaniel O'Bannon III and Police Chief Harold Johnson say they are out to clean up this seedy town.
But they also say the forces that conspired to turn a once-proud village founded by and for blacks into one now better known for strip joints and corruption are tough to counteract.
"It's a big change coming too quick for them," Johnson said of the resistance he has met.
He and the mayor said some of the people they had targeted were within the police department and village hall. The police officers have declined to speak on the record for fear of being fired.
Recently, St. Clair County deputies were called in to help patrol Brooklyn's streets after nine of the village's 11 officers contracted "blue flu" in protest of Johnson's investigation, which targeted some of them for spending too much time in the village's strip clubs.
Johnson has found himself in the cross hairs of the village trustees, who suspended him over allegations that $10,000 in village funds could not be accounted for.
Johnson, a nine-year veteran of Washington Park's police force who was hired in Brooklyn a year ago, said the sick-out and the suspension were an attempt...