By JEFFMAYES
Chicago Sun-Times Wire
The week started out with longest period of time without a fatal shooting in the city all year, but it ended with bloody holiday weekend that ended with at least 14 people dead from violence in Chicago.
The city saw a peaceful period from early Sunday morning until Thursday afternoon, a period of over 4 1/2 days without a fatal shooting. Then came the Christmas holiday, which was anything but peaceful, with at least 11 people killed and dozens of others shot.
When it was all over, 14 people were killed last week, bring the year’s total to over 780, including about a dozen who died this year after being shot or assaulted in previous years, according to Sun-Times Wire record.
The horrific holiday weekend ended with a mass shooting in the East Chatham neighborhood that left two bothers dead and five other people wounded, two of them critically.
It happened Christmas night about 9:20 p.m., when people were gathered for a family party on the porch of a home in the 8600 block of South Maryland. Someone wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt walked out from an adjacent alley and opened fire, according to Chicago Police. The shooter then ran away. Read more
Christopher D. Brown was shot to death Tuesday afternoon while walking in the Parkway Gardens neighborhood on the South Side.
Brown, 23, was walking at 5:08 p.m. in the 6400 block of South King Drive when two people walked up and fired several shots, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
He suffered a gunshot wound to the head and was pronounced dead at the scene at 5:46 p.m., authorities said. Brown lived in the 10700 block of South Wentworth.
—Chicago Sun-Times Wire
A man who was shot to death early Christmas Eve in the Brighton Park neighborhood on the Southwest Side has been identified as 27-year-old Juan Gonzalez.
Just after midnight, officers responding to a shooting in the 3000 block of West 38th Place found Gonzalez on the ground with gunshot wounds to the head and abdomen, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
He was pronounced dead at the scene, according to police and the medical examiner’s office. He lived in the 3300 block of West 38th Street.
By MICKDUMKE, MITCHDUDEK and JORDANOWEN
Chicago Sun-Times
Two brothers were killed and five other people were wounded in a Christmas night shooting in Chatham. / Mitch Dudek for the Sun Times
During her decade in office, Ald. Michelle Harris has talked many times with her City Council colleagues about the gun violence that has battered parts of the South and West sides.
But she says the middle-class neighborhoods in the heart of her ward have largely been spared.
That changed on Christmas night, when 18-year-old James Gill and his brother, 21-year-old Roy Gill III, were killed and five other people were wounded when a gunman opened fire on a group of people on the porch of an East Chatham bungalow. The motive isn’t clear. Police are still investigating.
“I’m stunned,” Harris said Monday. “I really am. This is something I’ve never had to deal with.”
The 8600 block of South Maryland Avenue, where the shooting occurred, is in an area of bungalows and other single-family homes that the alderman and other residents describe as “quiet.” Many residents moved there with their families decades ago. Read more
Jerry Thomas was shot to death on Christmas Day in the West Humboldt Park neighborhood on the West Side.
At 1:45 p.m. Sunday, the 22-year-old was in the 4400 block of West Chicago Avenue when a black truck drove by and someone inside fired shots, striking him multiple times, according to Chicago Police.
Thomas, of the 1200 block of South Kolin Avenue, was pronounced dead at the scene at 2:21 p.m., according to police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
Jamil Farley was shot multiple times and died minutes later at a hospital on Christmas Day in the South Shore neighborhood.
About 4:28 p.m., officers responded to a call of a person shot in the 2800 block of East 79th Street and found the 25-year-old with gunshot wounds to the back, leg and head, according to Chicago Police.
Farley, of the 9900 block of South Clyde Avenue, was taken to South Shore Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 4:40 p.m., according to police and the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office.
After being shot in the chest on the block where he lived in the West Side Austin neighborhood, Demetrius L. Newell died five days later on Christmas Eve.
The 28-year-old, known to friends as “HollywoodMagic,” was in the 1500 block of North Mayfield at 12:32 p.m. Dec. 19 when someone walked up and fired shots, striking him in the chest, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office. The shooter then ran away.
Newell, who lived on the block where he was shot, was taken to Illinois Masonic Medical Center. He was pronounced dead there on Christmas Eve at 4:05 p.m., according to police and the medical examiner’s office.
Niko L. Walker was found shot to death early Christmas morning in the South Shore neighborhood.
The 21-year-old Walker was found at 12:49 a.m. Sunday, lying on the ground in the backyard of a home in the 2600 block of East 76th Street, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
Walker, of the 7700 block of South Shore Drive, had been shot in the head, and was pronounced dead at the scene at 1:12 a.m., police and the medical examiner’s office said. An autopsy Sunday ruled his death a homicide.
David McClure was fatally shot Christmas morning in the Morgan Park neighborhood on the Far South Side.
Officers responded to a call of a person shot about 9:50 a.m. and found the 24-year-old McClure in the 1100 block of West 112th Place with multiple gunshot wounds, Chicago Police and the the Cook County medical examiner’s office said.
McClure, who lived on the same block where he was shot, was taken to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he was pronounced dead at 10:37 a.m., according to the medical examiner’s office.
A GoFundMe page has been set up to help with funeral/memorial expenses.
Nathaniel L. Edwards was fatally shot on Christmas Even in the West Englewood neighborhood on the South Side.
At 8:54 p.m., the 30-year-old Edwards was found unresponsive in a backyard in the 8900 block of South Hermitage, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
Edwards, of the 10600 block of South Aberdeen Street, was shot on the left side and was taken to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he was pronounced dead minutes later at 9:03 p.m., police and the medical examiner’s office said. An autopsy Sunday ruled his death a homicide.
A GoFundMe page has been set up to help the family with expenses.
—Chicago Sun-Times Wire
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…
