Homicide Watch Chicago

Deshawn Adams was gunned down Tuesday evening in a West Garfield Park neighborhood drive-by attack.

About 5:45 p.m., a dark car pulled up to the 20-year-old Adams in the 3500 block of West Van Buren and someone inside opened fire, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

Adams was struck multiple times in the head and chest. He was pronounced dead at the scene at 6:08 p.m., according to the medical examiner’s office. He lived in the 6700 block of South Eberhart.

—Chicago Sun-Times Wire

Kiev Dobbins. | Family photo

By LOU FOGLIA
Homicide Watch Chicago

Kiev Dobbins was a young man with adult responsibilities, family members said. He worked two jobs—three if you count the continuous care of his ailing grandmother, who suffers from dementia.

Dobbins kept track of her medications and shopped for her groceries, all while working as a driver for Uber and a clerk at the Edwardo Leamon Cigar and Hookah Lounge in south suburban Richton Park.

Each Thanksgiving, Dobbins would bake sweet potato soufflé, his mother’s favorite dish, and a tradition he started a few years ago when the family began celebrating at home instead of on the road.

“His family was everything to him. It really was,” Dobbins’ mother, Kesha McClurkin, said.

But this Thanksgiving will be different for Dobbins’ family. There will be no sweet potato soufflé, and no Dobbins. The 24-year old was fatally shot in the 8900 block of South Laflin on Sept. 18.
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Seventeen-year-old Ketrell Hill was killed and a 16-year-old boy wounded in a shooting Monday afternoon just a couple of blocks away from his home in the North Lawndale neighborhood.

About 2 p.m., the boys were on a sidewalk in the 1300 block of South Homan when a black vehicle pulled up. Someone inside opened fire, hitting Hill in the chest and hand, and the 16-year-old in the buttocks, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

They were taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where Hill died at 2:31 p.m., authorities said. He lived in the 3600 block of West Grenshaw.

The condition of the 16-year-old was stabilized, police said.

The shooter’s vehicle took off north on Homan. No one was in custody.

—Chicago Sun-Times Wire

By JEFF MAYES
Chicago Sun-Times Wire

The weather turned colder last week, but that couldn’t stop the violence, as 22 more people died as the result of homicides in Chicago, including the teenage grandson of a congressman, pushing the year’s homicide toll past 700 for the first time in nearly 20 years.

He was one of four people killed in separate shootings on the South and West sides Thursday as the city surpassed the 700 homicide total for the first time since 1998.

A total 0f 704 homicides were reported that year, a number already surpassed in mid-November with the 708th homicide of the year recorded (including 10 people who died this year of injuries suffered in attacks in earlier years) on Nov. 20. Last year the city recorded 473 homicides for the entire year.

Shootings are also far surpassing the 2015 totals, with Chicago Police reporting 3,165 shooting incidents through Wednesday. More than 3,290 people have been injured in those shootings, and that does not include the 630-plus who died as a result of being shot.

Police statistics show a 49 percent increase in shooting incidents over a year ago, and a 54 percent increase in homicides, though police had only reported 654 homicides as of last Wednesday. Police do not include prior-year incidents, shootings they consider self-defense or accidental, or fatal shootings that occur on interstate highways which are investigated by Illinois State Police.

The 701st homicide victim of 2016 was Javon Wilson, the teenage grandson of U.S. Rep. Danny Davis, who was shot to death in his Englewood home Friday evening. About 6:45 p.m., the 15-year-old was inside his home in the 5600 block of South Princeton when two people came in, started arguing with the boy, and then shot him in the head, according to Chicago Police and a statement from the congressman’s office.
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By JEFF MAYES
Chicago Sun-Times Wire

Chicago Police investigate a fatal shooting early Sunday in the 1300 block of North Moorman. | NVP News

Ald. Joe Moreno said on Facebook that Rodgers had just left the Esso nightclub at 1270 N. Milwaukee, and the alderman wants that venue closed permanently.

He said he met Monday with the owner and the 14th District police officials, and spoke with the Commissioner on Business Affairs and Consumer Protection about the club, which was also the scene of a shooting last winter in which three men were injured.

“The owner has agreed not to reopen Esso and to concentrate on selling the establishment,” Moreno wrote, adding that he will put the club up for “Deleterious Impact Hearings with the City’s Law Department.”
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A man who died about three hours after being shot early Sunday in the West Ridge neighborhood on the Northwest Side has been identified as 28-year-old Abimbola “Bim Diggity” Sheleru.

Officers called about 4:30 a.m. to the 2400 block of West Devon discovered Sheleru lying in an alley, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

Sheleru, who lived less than a mile away in the 6100 block of North Hermitage in Edgewater, was shot multiple times in the back. He was taken to St. Francis Hospital in Evanston, where he was pronounced dead at 7:43 a.m., authorities said.

The son of a pastor, Sheleru, known to friends as Bim Diggity, was the father of two children.

—Chicago Sun-Times Wire

A man fatally shot Sunday evening near his home in the East Side neighborhood on the Far South Side has been identified as 31-year-old Paul Cruz.

Cruz was outside just after 5 p.m. in the 10300 block of South Avenue M when a dark-colored SUV pulled up and someone inside fired shots, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

Cruz was shot in the abdomen and was pronounced dead at the scene at 5:29 p.m., authorities said. He lived a block away in the 10300 block of South Avenue L.

A GoFundMe page has been set up to help with funeral expenses for Cruz, who had one young daughter.

—Chicago Sun-Times Wire

Michael M. Gipson was shot to death after an argument early Sunday on the block where he lived in the Chatham neighborhood on the South Side, police said.

At 3:20 a.m., the 40-year-old was arguing with someone he knew in the 7800 block of South Michigan, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

That person then pulled out a gun and opened fire.

Gipson, who lived in the same block, was shot in the abdomen, and was taken to Stroger Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 4:11 a.m., authorities said.

The family has set up a GoFundMe page to help offset funeral costs for Gipson, who was known to friends as “Zo.”

—Chicago Sun-Times Wire

By JON SEIDEL and MITCH DUDEK
Chicago Sun-Times

Javon WIlson | Facebook

Tariq Harris, 16; and Dijae Banks, 17, were denied bond Saturday. Both were charged as adults with first-degree murder and home invasion in the death of Wilson, who was shot in the neck Friday at his Englewood home.

Cook County Judge James Brown said the pair “pose a grave danger to the community” and showed “a clear and total callous disregard [for the] precious nature of human life.”

Prosecutors said the shooting was a result of a dispute over a pair of borrowed shoes.

In previous weeks, Banks had exchanged clothing with Wilson’s 14-year-old brother, including a pair of shoes she lent him in exchange for a pair of pants, Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney Bryan Grissman said at a court hearing Sunday.

Banks and Harris arrived about 6:45 p.m. Friday at the back door of the Wilson’s second-story apartment in the 5600 block of South Princeton Avenue with a message: Banks wanted the shoes back.
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A man shot to death Saturday morning in the Englewood neighborhood on the South Side has been identified as 22-year-old Simion Jackson.

Jackson was shot in the head at 9:12 a.m. in the 6700 block of South Morgan, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

Jackson, of the 3800 block of West Ferdinand, was pronounced dead at the scene at 9:30 a.m., according to the medical examiner’s office.

An autopsy found he died of multiple gunshot wounds.

—Chicago Sun-Times Wire