By JEFFMAYES
Chicago Sun-Times Wire
At least 14 people were killed in violence in Chicago last week, including two women, one of whom was fatally stabbed by her ex-boyfriend in a murder-suicide, and the other who was an innocent bystander caught in gang crossfire.
The deadly week brought the homicide total for Chicago to more than 580 so far this year, according to unoffical totals from the Chicago Sun-Times Wire. Last year there were about 430 homicides through this point in the year.
One of the week’s most shocking killings was the death of 21-year-old Adrianna Mayes, killed when caught in an exchange of gunfire while standing outside her home with her 14-month-old daughter in her arms in Roseland. They were struck when two groups of males exchanged gunfire about 2 p.m. at 106th and State, according to Chicago Police.
Mayes was shot in her left side and was taken to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where she was pronounced dead less than an hour later, according to police and the medical examiner’s office. Mayes, not believed to be a target of the shooting, lived on the same block where she was shot.
A 22-year-old man was also shot, police said. He took himself to Roseland Community Hospital with a gunshot wound to the left hand, and was listed in good condition. The baby was not injured.
Another woman was killed when her 35-year-old ex-boyfriend fatally stabbed her before jumping to his death Friday evening in the Prairie Shores neighborhood on the South Side. About 7 p.m., Rodney Alan Harvey Jr. confronted Julia Martin, 28, when she returned to her home in the 3000 block of South King Drive. Read more
By JEFFMAYES
Homicide Watch Chicago
At least 13 people were shot to death last week in Chicago. The death toll included two men who where struck when gunshots were fired in separate incidents on a West Side expressway about six hour apart; and a 17-year-old girl who was killed by a stray bullet when two groups started shooting at each other in Back of the Yards.
One man was shot and killed on the Eisenhower late Thursday morning. Troopers responded to shots fired about 11:50 a.m. in the eastbound lanes of I-290 at Central Avenue, according to Illinois State Police. A passenger in a vehicle, 23-year-old Devon Almon, was shot and the driver took him to West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park, authorities said.
Almon was pronounced dead about 30 minutes later. The female driver was not wounded. The ramp from I-290 eastbound to Central Avenue was closed for more than two hours after the shooting.
And just a few hours earlier, a man was killed and a woman wounded in another shooting on the Ike on the West Side. The victims were shot about 5:30 a.m. on westbound I-290 near Laramie, according to state police. They were found a few minutes before 6 a.m. at Flournoy and Lockwood and taken to Stroger Hospital, police said.
Jonathan Ortiz, 22, was pronounced dead at the hospital at 6:18 a.m., according to the medical examiner’s office. The woman was initially listed in critical condition, but was later released from the hospital. Police closed all westbound I-290 lanes in the area for more than four hours to investigate.
Seventeen-year-old Naome Zuber, a Curie High School student, was fatally shot while riding in a car in the Back of the Yards neighborhood early Saturday. Family members and police do not believe she was the intended target. Read more
At least 19 people were killed in Chicago violence last week, pushing the year’s homicide total to over the 550 mark, a number that could go up when pending autopsy results are complete.
One of those undetermined cases involved a severed head and other body parts that were found inside a garbage bag floating in the McKinley Park lagoon on Friday morning. The human remains were found about at the park at 2210 W. Pershing, according to Chicago Police.
A Chicago Park District worker found the bag during a routine clean-up and discovered the man’s head and other body parts inside. Authorities said the victim appeared to be a black male, but he had not been identified as of Wednesday, and autopsy results were pending, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office.
As of Tuesday, there were 560 homicides in Chicago this year, according to an unofficial count kept by the Chicago Sun-Times Wire. Last year, police reported a total of 468 murders for the entire year.
The week’s final homicide was a 54-year-old man from the western suburbs who died Sunday evening after being shot in the head Saturday night near Millennium Park in the Loop. Peter Fabbri of Berwyn was pronounced dead at 5:53 p.m. Sunday at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, according to the medical examiner’s office.
He had been walking with two people around 7:35 p.m. Saturday along Michigan Avenue when he got into an argument with another man at the northeast corner of Michigan and Monroe, according to police. They started fighting, and the other person pulled a gun and shot him in the head. Read more
The week just passed saw the fewest number of people murdered in Chicago in nearly four months.
Nine people were homicide victims on that final week in May, and last week, there were 10 killed in the city, nine of them shot and one the victim of an arsonist who started blazes in trash bins and piles, several of which spread to adjacent buildings, in Heart of Chicago.
The final homicide of the week may have been the most shocking, when a pregnant woman was shot while sitting with a man in a car, and doctors had to rush to save her baby, several months premature, after the mother died.
Parasha M. Beard was killed and a man critically wounded in that South Chicago neighborhood shooting on Sunday evening. Shortly after 6 p.m., the 19-year-old was with a 26-year-old man sitting in a car parked in the 8700 block of South Marquette, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office. Read more
If you wanted a perfect example of the epidemic of violence on Chicago’s streets this year, look no farther than the Southwest Side Brainerd neighborhood last weekend.
On Saturday, a man was shot to death while standing outside his own home. On Sunday, while neighbors were conducting a memorial vigil in his honor, a young woman was killed and two other teens wounded when gunfire erupted again.
While it may seem shocking, such incidents are all too common this year in Chicago, where more than 500 homicides and 3,000 shootings have now been recorded, both figures already exceeding the total for all of 2015.
The week’s final homicide was the woman shot to death Sunday night at the vigil. KeeKee Fleming, 18, was among three people shot at 8:07 p.m. in the 8900 block of South Justine, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
The group was standing outside at a vigil when a grey minivan drove up, and two people got out and began shooting, police said. The shooters then got back in the van and drove away.
Fleming, who lived on the same block, was shot in the head and was pronounced dead at Little Company of Mary Hospital in Evergreen Park, according to police and the medical examiner’s office. Two boys—16 and 17—were also wounded, and were taken to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn. The 17-year-old was shot in the arm and was in critical condition, while the younger man was shot in the buttocks and was stabilized. Read more
By JEFFMAYES
Chicago Sun-Times Wire
At least 16 people died from gunshot wounds in Chicago last week, capped by a bloody Sunday during which five were killed. And the murder total could rise, pending autopsy results on two bodies found inside a burning van on the Southwest Side.
The week’s final homicide was a 17-year-old boy shot to death Sunday night in the South Shore neighborhood. Jamel Rollins was standing outside about 10:30 p.m. in the 7800 block of South Cornell when two males walked up and opened fire, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
Rollins was shot in the back, and was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead about 90 minutes later, according to the medical examiner’s office. An autopsy found he died of multiple gunshot wounds.
Korry Rogers was shot to death Sunday evening in the Back of the Yards neighborhood. Officers responding at 6:07 p.m. to a call of a person shot in the 5200 block of South Sangamon found the 19-year-old suffering from multiple gunshot wounds to the body, according to police. Rogers was taken to Stroger Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 7:24 p.m. An autopsy found he died of multiple gunshot wounds.
By JEFFMAYES
Chicago Sun-Times Wire
While it did not become official until Wednesday morning, this August has been the deadliest month in Chicago in nearly 20 years. En route to reaching that 80th homicide of the month this week, at least 22 people were homicide victims last week, including three girls 7 and younger killed when someone set fire to the apartment building they lived in on the South Side.
Not since October of 1997 had there been so much violence in a single month. It is just another grim milestone in a year that is rapidly approaching the 500-homicide mark, which meaning CHicago will likely top its total for all of last year in just over eight months.
The deaths of three girls and man after a South Chicago neighborhood apartment building fire were ruled homicides by the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
The blaze was first reported at 1:36 a.m. Tuesday in the three-story, courtyard apartment building in the 8100 block of South Essex, according to the Chicago Fire Department. It was upgraded to a three-alarm fire by 1:53 a.m.
A 3-month-old girl who lived in the building, Melanie Watson, was taken to Comer Children’s Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 2:40 a.m., according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office. An autopsy showed she died from injuries from a fall from height, and carbon monoxide toxicity.
The other two girls — Madison Watson, 4, and Shaniya Staples, 7 — and 56-year-old Kirk Johnson, were found dead inside the building after the fire was extinguished. Autopsies ruled they died of thermal injuries and carbon monoxide toxicity.
On Thursday, police said they released a “person of interest” who had been questioned in connection with the fire. No charges have yet been filed.
The week’s final homicide was a 20-year-old man shot to death Sunday afternoon in Austin. About 4:20 p.m., Terrence Murphy was on a sidewalk near his home in the 5400 block of West Jackson when someone walked up and shot him in the abdomen, according to police and the medical examiner’s office. Murphy was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he died minutes later.
At least 18 victims of violence died in Chicago last week, including a newborn who died two days after an emergency delivery necessitated by his mother being shot in the chest by her brother, according to police.
The week’s death toll brings the city’s 2016 homicide total to 460 in less than eight months, according to Sun-Times Wire statistics. Last year fewer than 500 were killed for the entire year.
The newborn baby boy died Tuesday, just two days after being delivered by emergency cesarean section after a man shot the pregnant mother in the chest, according to Chicago Police. William E. Welch, 38, faces first-degree murder charges for the Sunday shooting near his home in the 1600 block of South Springfield.
Police said an argument started about 10:45 a.m. and Welch shot his 35-year-old sister in the chest. She was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in critical condition, and her baby was delivered prematurely, police said.
The child, identified as Baby Boy Welch, died at 5:20 a.m. Tuesday of complications of extreme prematurity and emergency cesarean section delivery due to the mother’s gunshot wound, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office. The death was ruled a homicide. The woman remains hospitalized.
The week’s final homicide was a southwest suburban man who was shot to death inside a Gage Park neighborhood home Sunday afternoon. Daniel Delgado was in a hallway of the home in the 5500 block of South Spaulding about 4:30 p.m. when someone walked up and shot him, according to authorities. Read more
It started with the single deadliest day in Chicago in 13 years, and ended with a tragic weekend in which the victims included a U.S. Army veteran and the son of a Chicago Police officer.
By the time it was over, at least 28 people were killed in Chicago violence last week.
The week got off to a violent start with nine people shot to death on Monday, the single highest death toll in the city for one day since July 5, 2003.
And with at least nine more people shot over a weekend that saw more than 60 people shot, it ended up the bloodiest week in Chicago this year, bringing the 2016 homicide total to at least 440.
The son of a Chicago Police officer was killed and another man wounded in a shooting early Sunday in the Wrightwood neighborhood. Arshell Dennis III, 19, was a journalism student at St. John’s University in New York City who was home for his mother’s birthday and planning to return to school on Sunday. Read more
By JEFFMAYES
Chicago Sun-Times Wire
Last week saw the release of of the video of another fatal police shooting, and another round of protests from groups aimed at stopping police violence.
But while the city’s attention was focused on the shooting that claimed the life of Paul O’Neal, at least 15 other people died from shootings and other violence in the city.
The latest week of violence brought the city’s homicide total to over 425, according to the unofficial count by the Chicago Sun-Times Wire.
Six of the killings occurred over the weekend, capped by the killing of a man at his own birthday party in the University Village neighborhood early Sunday.
The 43-year-old man and a 40-year-old woman were at the party, attended by more than 100 people, when it was interrupted by gunfire about 2:20 a.m. in the 1300 block of West Hastings, according to police. Read more
What is Homicide Watch Chicago?
Homicide Watch Chicago is dedicated to the proposition that murder is never a run-of-the-mill story. Attention must be paid to each one, not merely a select and particularly tragic few. We understand the reality of the public’s demand for news - that some stories get more attention than others. But all murders represent a degree of human suffering - direct and indirect - that cannot be ignored. Read more…
