Kenneth Jackson / Photo from Chicago Police
BY RUMMANA HUSSAIN
Chicago Sun-Times
Kenneth Jackson didn’t like the alleged comments Simeon High School football player Michael Flournoy made to his daughter.
So, he recruited his two friends and came back to the South Side store where he argued with Flournoy earlier, Cook County prosecutors said.
Jackson and his friends started punching and kicking the 16-year-old in the head and body that night on April 5, Assistant State’s Attorney Elizabeth Novy said.
When Flournoy fell to the ground at the store in the 1000 block of East 93rd Street, one of Jackson’s friends shot Flournoy in the head with the weapon he retrieved just before the fight, Novy said.
It was Jackson who had driven his friend to the location where he got the gun, Novy said.
Jackson and the two others fled in Jackson’s girlfriend’s car following the fatal shooting, Novy said.
Video surveillance shows the car at the scene of the crime, Novy said.
Jackson, 31, a father of five, was ordered held in lieu of $1 million bail Thursday on murder and mob action charges.
He allegedly admitted arguing with Flournoy, telling his cohorts and driving them to the store, knowing that one of the friends had a gun.
Jackson, of the 100 block of East 59th Street, was in Cook County Jail for an unrelated drug case when he was recently arrested for Flournoy’s murder, according to court records.
The two other men have not been charged.
Family, friends and neighbors all described Flournoy as an ambitious, soft-spoken kid with a good head on his shoulders who steered clear of drugs and gangs. He had an interview for a summer job at Navy Pier scheduled just a few days after he was killed, according to his grandfather, Samuel Woods.
The day Flournoy died, Woods said, the teen was on his way to pick up chips at the store on 93rd when he got into a fight with some other boys.
“They jumped on him,” Woods said at the time. “Beat him up. And then they shot him in the face.”
Woods said he used to drive Flournoy to the North Side to look at buildings. The boy loved cars, thought about becoming a firefighter, but really wanted to be an architect, Woods said.
Flournoy also played defensive back and wide receiver on the sophomore football team at Simeon.
“He was a great kid, around the school always helping people out. He was a very soft spoken young man, you would have to tell him to speak up just to hear him talk. Just a good kid,” Simeon football coach Dante Culbreath said at the time of Flournoy’s death.
— Contributing: Jordan Owen