Homicide Watch Chicago

By JEFF MAYES
Homicide Watch Chicago

They ranged from young children to retired seniors, from retired Marines to drill rappers to anti-violence activists. They lived on the West Side, the South Side, and the East Side.

The only thing they had in common? They were among 23 people killed in Chicago last week, one of the more violent weeks of the year as the city surpassed last year’s homicide total and neared the 400 mark for the year (385 as July 21, compared to 369 a year ago).

The youngest victim was a 10-year-old boy killed in a shooting that also left a man critically wounded Friday evening in East Side, Gustavo Garcia was in an SUV with his stepfather and a 31-year-old man at 11:13 p.m., traveling west in the 3500 block of East 97th Street, Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office said.

A gray car pulled up next to them and someone inside fired shots. Gustavo was shot in the back and was taken to Comer Children’s Hospital, where he died, authorities said. He lived in the South Chicago neighborhood. The man was taken to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he was in critical condition, according to police. He was shot in the back, face and chest.

The oldest victim was 60-year-old retired Marine shot to death during an attempted robbery Saturday morning in the East Garfield Park neighborhood on the West Side. Robert Sharpe was walking to the bus on the way to a dialysis treatment at 4:55 a.m. in the 3200 block of West Franklin when an armed male confronted him and demanded his money, according to police and the medical examiner’s office.
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By JEFF MAYES
Homicide Watch Chicago

The long Fourth of July weekend went out with a deadly bang last week, with at least 8 people killed in the last 10 hours of the four-day holiday period.

For the period from late Friday, JUne 30, through Wednesday morning, July 5, at least 12 people were killed and 87 others wounded in shootings across Chicago.

Last year’s Independence Day weekend, which was one day shorter than this year’s, ended with 66 people shot, four of them fatally—a total that actually stoked cautious optimism at the time as it marked the lowest death toll for the July 4 weekend in nearly a decade.

Eight of the people who died this year were among 36 people shot across the city in an 10-hour span of violence between about 5 p.m. Tuesday and 3 a.m. Wednesday.

• It started with a man struck by a stray bullet Tuesday evening in the Riverdale neighborhood on the Far South Side. Witnesses told investigators that 21-year-old Aaron Gordon was shot by someone firing from a light-colored sedan into another vehicle at 5:18 p.m. in the 200 block of East 132nd St., according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office. Gordon was sitting in a vehicle parked nearby when he was shot in his face, police said. He was not thought to be the intended target. He was taken to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he was pronounced dead at 6:39 p.m. He lived in south suburban County Club Hills.

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By JEFF MAYES
Homicide Watch Chicago

There were more homicides in Chicago in 2016 than in the previous two decades. And after 22 more people were killed in the city last week, 2017 is shaping up to be an even deadlier year.

As of July 6, 2016, there had been 341 homicides reported, according to Chicago Sun-Times statistics. As of July 6, 2017, there have been 349.

Of the fatal shootings reported last week, four of the incidents resulted in two or more people being killed, including a triple-fatal homicide in the South Side Englewood neighborhood.

That was one of only three incidents for which suspects have been arrested and charged.

Two men are being held without bond, charged with fatally shooting the three men Friday night. Timothy Gordon, 19, and Jayden Dorsey, 21, both face three counts of first-degree murder, according to Chicago Police.

Cook County prosecutors said the pair walked up to an apartment building in the 5700 block of South Wells about 8:50 p.m. and opened fire, spraying the building with more than 40 shots.

Javon Jackson, 30, was struck eight times and died at Northwestern Memorial Hospital on Friday night. Sedrick Ringer, 50, suffered nine gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene. And the next day, relatives came to the house and found John Hunter, 52, dead in his apartment with a wound to his thigh, authorities said. Police found 43 shell casings outside the house.
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By JEFF MAYES
Chicago Sun-Times Wire

Federal official announced this week they will be sending another 20 ATF Police officers to Chicago to help slow the wave of gun violence that does not seem to have slowed from last year’s deadly pace.

Another 14 people died last week and the city’s homicide total stood at 330 as of Friday morning. That means Chicago is actually one homicide ahead of last year, when murder total through June 30 was 329.

The city went on to record over 780 murders last year, the most in nearly 20 years, and while the number of shootings is down in 2017, the number of homicides is not.

Whether the extra federal help will show any significant results has yet to be seen, but the city is now entering that time of year which historically shows the highest number of homicides.

In shootings last week:

• A 28-year-old man died two days after he was wounded in a shooting late Friday in the West Side Austin neighborhood. About 11:55 p.m. Friday, officers responding to a call of shots fired in the 5800 block of West Ohio found Ira Johnson lying on the sidewalk with a gunshot wound to the head, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office. Johnson, who lived in the same neighborhood, was taken to Stroger Hospital, where he died at 10:17 p.m. Sunday.

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By JEFF MAYES
Homicide Watch Chicago

The victims ranged in age from 3 years old to 78. Several of them were teenagers, while three of them were in their 60s or older. Six of them died on Father’s Day, including the toddler who was allegedly beaten to death by her father; and an elderly couple allegedly beaten to death by their sons.

And as Chicago’s homicide total hit 300 for the year with the final murder of the week, there were fatal shootings on the South, Southwest and West sides, and even downtown in the Streeterville neighborhood.

Father’s Day was especially bloody.

It started with the killing of a 3-year-old Jazebel Aleman early Sunday in her Little Village neighborhood home on the Southwest Side.

Two days later, her father, 26-year-old Eduardo Aleman, was charged with first-degree murder, according to Chicago Police and Cook County prosecutors.

Officers responded about 1:10 a.m. to reports of the toddler not breathing in an apartment in the 2500 block of South Homan, police said. Jazebel was pronounced dead at the scene minutes later, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
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By JEFF MAYES
Homicide Watch Chicago

As the temperatures started to heat up last week, the homicide total in CHicago jumped to 19 last week, matching the high for any week so far in 2017.

And the year continues to keep pace with 2016’s total of about 780 homicides, the highest total in the city in two decades. As of Wednesday, there had been 284 homicides in the city so far this year, exactly matching the total for the same date in 2016.

And two more of the dead were victims of domestic violence, including a 12-year-old girl brutally murdered by her mother’s ex-boyfriend, a felon whom she called “Daddy.”

But he is now charged with beating and stabbing the popular girl to death Sunday night in the Sheridan Park neighborhood on the North Side. Alexis Stubbs suffered multiple stab wounds and blunt trauma about 9:45 p.m. in the 4600 block of North Beacon, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office. She was taken to Illinois Masonic Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead an hour later.

On Monday, authorities charged John Singleton with first-degree murder. The 31-year-old was ordered held without bond on Tuesday. He had pleaded guilty to aggravated domestic battery for choking Alexis’ mother in 2014, and had just been released from prison in April.
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By JEFF MAYES
Homicide Watch Chicago

In one of the bloodiest weeks of the first half of the year, a total of 19 people were murdered in Chicago last week, including a visually-impaired teenager, a man shot to death by his stepson, and two young women who were the victims in murder-suicides.

The week started off with five fatal shootings on Memorial Day, the shooting of the physicaly and mentally handicapped teen, shot while playing basketball at a park across the street from his home.

Jervon Morris, 18, was shot in the head about 5:40 p.m. in the 9800 block of South Wallace, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

The special needs student and graduate of Curie Metro High School, lost most of his eyesight as a very young boy, and had other physical and mental impairments. But he loved to play basketball (by sound) and volunteer for kids’ aprogram at the park across the street from his Longwood Manor home.

But he was in the park when he apprently got caught in the crossfire between gang members and was struck in the head, police said. Morris, who lived about a block away, was pronounced dead at the scene at 5:58 p.m.

Two of the other holiday shootings were domestic in nature.

A man and woman were found shot to death Monday morning in a murder-suicide in the South Side Bronzeville neighborhood. Tiara “Chiquita” Goodman, 25; and 32-year-old Marcel Davis were found about 10:50 a.m. in the hallway of her apartment building in the 2900 block of South State, according to police and the medical examiner’s office. Both had been shot in the head.
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By JEFF MAYES
Homicide Watch Chicago

Chicago Police geared up for the Memorial Day weekend by adding more than 1,200 officers to the ranks for the unofficial start of summer. They also arrested dozens of suspected gang members, hoping to stem weekend violence by keeping them off the streets.

And while the weekend started calmly, with only one fatal shooting the first two days, a rash of violence earlier in the week still left last week’s death toll at 12.

The only fatal shooting reported during the first days of the holiday weekend was a 16-year-old boy who was killed in a shooting Sunday evening in the West Side Lawndale neighborhood, an incident that also left a and a 16-year-old girl wounded.

The teens were in a gangway about 6:30 p.m. in the 1600 block of South St. Louis when someone fired shots at them from a passing gray car, according to police. Daishawn Moore, 16, was shot in the back and was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he died minutes later, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

He lived in the same neighborhood as where the shooting happened. The girl suffered a graze wound to the back and was also taken to Mount Sinai, police said.
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By JEFF MAYES
Chicago Sun-Times

Ten more people died from violence in Chicago last week, and that number could go up after police and medical examiner’s investigations are complete.

The dead included nine people who were shot, and a man who was stabbed in his home.

The number does not include a woman run down by a car, an incident which witnesses claimed was intentional; and a woman whose body was found in a trash can. In both cases, autopsy results were inconclusive, with results pending further investigation.

The weekend’s last homicide occurred when a man was killed and a teenage boy wounded in a shooting Sunday afternoon in the West Side Austin neighborhood. The shooting happened about 2:40 p.m. in the 100 block of North Parkside, Chicago Police said.

Jerrelle Elton Johnson Jr., 18, was shot in the back and was pronounced dead at the scene at 2:52 p.m., according to police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office. He lived on the Near West Side.
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By JEFF MAYES
Homicide Watch Chicago

At least 16 more people died from violence last week in Chicago, including five on Sunday alone, but possibly the most shocking involved a social media dispute that got out of hand.

The victim, the daughter of a Chicago cop, had been feuding with another woman on social media, and that eventually led to a physical confrontation Friday night in the Morgan Park neighborhood.

But one of the women, who was the mother of the victim’s boyfriend’s child, did not let it go, according to Cook County prosecutors. She got into her SUV, pinned the woman against a tree, and then ran her over twice.

When it was over, 24-year-old Chynna Stapleton was charged with first-degree murder for the death of 18-year-old Tatyanna Lewis, who was struck by the vehicle just after 11 p.m. in the 11400 block of South May, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office. Lewis was the daughter of a Chicago Police officer.
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