Dovone Jackson didn’t like to see his former girlfriend with other men, especially when she had their 4-year-old daughter with her. So family members weren’t surprised that a fight broke out Monday evening, when the woman was driving around their West Pullman neighborhood with a man believed to be her new boyfriend. 
What they don’t understand is how a fight could lead to gunfire, and the 23-year-old Jackson’s death.
“There was a fight, yes. But he didn’t deserve to get shot down,” said Leatrise Askew, Jackson’s aunt.
Area south detectives are investigating the shooting, which happened at about 9:15 p.m. Monday in the 11700 block of S. Normal, around the corner from where Jackson lived. Jackson died early Tuesday morning at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn. Police would say only that the shooting was a possible domestic incident.
Reba Askew, Jackson’s mother, said the trouble began with an argument.
“She was riding up and down all day with a boy in the car. She knows how my son feel about her being with another man. Then they get to fighting and the bullet come out of the car and shoot my baby,” Askew said, adding that Jackson’s 4-year-old daughter was in the car as well.
Patricia Bernard, who lives on the block, said she saw the whole thing.
“His baby mama was pulling … his hair, and he couldn’t swing or move or do anything because she had his head locked down,” Bernard said. “And in the midst of that, you know, we got them to break up the fight. When I looked up, him (Jackson) and the guy was fighting. And then I turned around, dude pulled out a gun, and he shot him. That’s all I know.”
Standing in front of a makeshift memorial on the spot where Jackson was shot, Bernard told Askew she was angry that some people on the block were not talking to police, or to Askew, about what happened.
“When the police came and showed me the paper, identifying him, I pointed him out,” Bernard said. “I’m not going to sit out here and wait it out. None of that. That’s what’s making me mad. I feel they’re leaving you in the dark about your baby.”
Leatrise Askew agreed.
“This block was full of people. But they don’t want to talk to police,” she said.
Reba Askew remembered her son as a quiet kid who preferred hanging out at home rather than on the street.
“He was a home-body child. He loved to stay at home.”
Bernard, who admitted that she liked hanging out on the block, agreed.
“I’m not going to let anyone say he was a bad person; that he was hanging out on the street. No. Von was a person who wanted to go shopping and spend time by himself, and be with his baby and be with his mama,” she said.