Hadiya Pendleton | Homicide Watch Chicago

Stepfather of alleged Pendleton killer says he is innocent

John Carpenter — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 13:55:45 -0500

Chicago Sun-Times (IL) - Saturday, February 16, 2013

Author/Byline: Stefano Esposito ; Staff

Under different circumstances, President Obama’s speech at Hyde Park Academy High School on Friday might have simply been a proud occasion for Mike Lopez.
After all, the South Side man’s 15-year-old stepdaughter was among the students there to hear the president talk about putting an end to senseless killings, like that of Hadiya Pendleton .

But in an odd and painful coincidence, Obama was also talking, indirectly, about Lopez’s other stepchild, Kenneth Williams — one of the two charged with Hadiya ’s murder.

“It was very ironic,” said Lopez, in his first interview since his stepson’s arrest about a week ago.

Lopez, a self-employed caterer, is speaking out now because he wants the public to know Williams is more than a booking mugshot — and that he’s innocent.

“I ask that they let the system work the way it’s meant to work, where we are innocent until proven guilty,” said Lopez, 44, who is married to Williams’ biological mother, Julia Beal-Lopez.

Police say Williams, 20, and Michael Ward, 18, were gang-bangers out for vengeance Jan. 29, when Ward allegedly opened fire, killing 15-year-old Hadiya , who was seeking shelter from the rain with friends under a canopy at Harsh Park in the 4400 block of South Oakenwald. Ward and Williams mistook the group for a rival gang suspected of shooting Williams in the arm near his Chicago Housing Authority home at 39th and South Lake Park last summer, investigators say. He allegedly told another person about his role in the murder. But Williams never confessed to police, Lopez said.

Lopez says police are the ones who’ve made the bad I.D. Lopez described a neighborhood so thick with gang-bangers, so rife with gunfire, that sometimes the innocent get unjustly branded with the gang-banger label.

Williams, a 2011 King College Prep High School graduate, was a kid with a future — in the U.S. Air Force, Lopez said.

“He would have been getting ready to leave for basic training in the next month or so,” Lopez said.

Lopez isn’t alone in that opinion. Half a dozen teachers at King College Prep recalled Williams as a smart, charming student.

“He was no angel, but he could write and speak well,” said teacher Jocelyn Alexander Shaw, who had Williams in her English class in 2010. “Of my boys in class, he participated in discussion quite often, making for a great contribution. He was a jokester who was liked by many. Overall, he was a pretty charming kid with the baby face that made it pretty hard to stay mad at him for whatever reason.”

James McKatherine, the school’s former baseball coach and a current Chicago Police officer, remembered Williams as a not particularly gifted, but unusually dedicated, athlete. Williams would stay hours late, working on his pitching and fielding.

“He showed up early, left late, got extra hitting in, extra fielding — trying to make the starting line-up,” which, said McKatherine, he never did.

If Williams was in a gang, half a dozen of his teachers never suspected it.

“He was well groomed,” said Ronald Stewart Jr., chair of the P.E. department. “He wasn’t boasting about anything. He was just a real good kid.”

With ambitions of joining the Air Force, Williams appeared to be heading for a good future. He took classes at Malcolm X College and he had a part-time job at Macy’s on State Street, Lopez said.

And then one July evening last summer, Williams was walking not far from his home, when three men approached. Williams would later tell police two of them had handguns. He told police he ran and that he was shot in the arm. He said he knew one of the men from his neighborhood. But he wouldn’t give police a name.

The “no-snitch code” is an on-going frustration for Chicago detectives trying to tackle gang violence, but Lopez said he understands it.

“I encouraged him to press charges,” Lopez said. “Unfortunately, the way things are now — if you do that, then you’re considered a rat or a snitch, even if you’re a victim.”

But Lopez said Williams’ lack of cooperation doesn’t make him a criminal. He said Williams and Ward weren’t buddies, weren’t together when Hadiya was shot — even though one neighbor in the building where Williams lived said she saw the two young men together often.

On Friday evening, hours after Obama’s speech ended, Lopez was thinking of a different connection — the one he says he now shares with Hadiya ’s family.

“We deeply feel for them,” Lopez said. “I don’t know what it’s like to lose a child, but I’m experiencing it now. . . Unfortunately, via Hadiya ’s death, our son has been taken away from us.”

Alleged killer: ‘She was simply there’

John Carpenter — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 13:53:40 -0500

Chicago Sun-Times (IL) - Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Author/Byline: RUMMANA HUSSAIN AND MITCH DUDEK ; Staff Reporters

The gunman who allegedly killed Hadiya Pendleton in a South Side park chalked her death up to the collateral damage of an ongoing three-year gang war, telling police the 15-year-old girl had “nothing to do with it. She was simply there.”
In bond court Tuesday, Cook County prosecutors said Michael Ward, 18, made the comments to police in a videotaped confession after he was taken into custody along with his alleged getaway driver, Kenneth Williams, 20. Both men were denied bail.

The two were arrested while driving to a strip club in Harvey on Saturday, the same day first lady Michelle Obama attended the funeral of the King College Prep student. Hadiya performed as a baton-twirling majorette at festivities surrounding President Barack Obama’s inauguration in the nation’s capital with her school band the week before she was killed.

Both men are charged with first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated battery with a firearm.

The men were driving around in Ward’s mom’s white Nissan on Jan. 29 looking for rival gang members when they encounteredHadiya and her friends, who’d just finished school exams and had sought shelter from the rain under a canopy at the park on the 4400 block of South Oakenwald, authorities said. None in the group had gang ties.

Ward snuck up on the teens and allegedly fired six shots — striking Hadiya in the back, and wounding two other teens.

Ward, who’d lost a friend in the gang feud, later tried to rationalize the shooting by telling police, “If we keep standing for this, we are going to be some straight bitches,” said assistant state’s attorney Jennifer Sexton.

Speaking on the loss of his friend, Ward told police, “It hurt, it hurt. It hurt to a point where everyone had to go,” prosecutors said.

Ward’s alleged accomplice and wheelman had been shot in the arm in July but refused to help police prosecute the man police arrested for the crime, police said.

“They go driving around looking for gang members, but that’s not who gets shot,” said State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez. “Who gets shot are three innocent kids. It’s just an example of what happens when someone decides to take it on their own to get revenge for something that had happened to them.”

The Nissan was captured by surveillance cameras before and after the shooting and cell records show that Williams was in the park at the time of the murder, prosecutors said.

Williams, a King College Prep graduate, had a previous conviction for retail theft.

Ward, who had a 2011 unlawful use of a weapon conviction, also has a juvenile record for robbery, theft and aggravated battery, prosecutors said.

Alvarez touched upon the need for stricter gun laws and how Ward was able to skip prison time for his weapons violation based on his age.

Ward was arrested for misdemeanor criminal trespass late last year, but the probation department did not notify prosecutors, Alvarez said.

Mistakes were made, Alvarez said following the hearing.

Ward is currently taking courses at Malcolm X College and works as a janitor for a temp agency, his attorney Jeffrey Granich said.

Granich said a warrant was never issued before Ward was arrested, and that his pleas for an attorney during his 48 hours in police custody were ignored.

“This is a serious criminal case. This is not a political situation. This is not a political platform. The problem when criminal cases get made into political cases is rules are bent, mistakes are made ...,” Granich said.

Williams’ attorney Matthew McQuaid said his client is not in a gang, did not make any statements implicating himself in the murder to detectives and is employed by an air courier service at O’Hare Airport. He added that Williams was not identified in a lineup.

Family friends of Hadiya ’s relatives said they were happy Ward and Williams are locked up but said they were frustrated by the violence that is enveloping the city.

“They need to be off the streets,” said David Smith, a family friend. “These guys were running around hunting for people, just anybody. It really didn’t matter.”

Alleged Hadiya Pendleton killers plead not guilty

John Carpenter — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 13:51:41 -0500

Chicago Sun-Times (IL) - Thursday, March 28, 2013

Author/Byline: RUMMANA HUSSAIN ; Criminal Courts

Hadiya Pendleton ’s alleged killers pleaded not guilty to several dozen counts of murder and myriad other charges Thursday in the high-profile slaying of the 15-year-old honors student.
Nathaniel Pendleton , the girl’s father, said he felt “some bit of anger” seeing purported gang members Michael Ward and Kenneth Williams in court, but he said he wants to focus on being “peaceful” and highlighting the importance of non-violence.

“I’m trying to not think about it,” Pendleton said of losing his daughter in the Jan. 29 shooting in a South Side park.

Meanwhile, Ward’s attorney expressed dismay at the 141 first-degree murder counts revealed against his client.

Williams, the alleged getaway driver, is facing 17 first-degree murder counts.

Prosecutors often deliver several count murder indictments, which are eventually merged at trial, but Jeffrey Granich said Ward’s 100-plus counts were “absurd” and an attempt by the Cook County state’s attorney’s office to pander to the press and politicians.

“[Prosecutors] are trying to show, ‘Look how seriously we are taking the case.’ But they look stupid and foolish,” the defense attorney said.

Officials with the state’s attorney’s office did not return calls to address Granich’s comments.

Ward, 18, was the alleged gunman who killed Pendelton and injured her two friends as they sought shelter from the rain under a park canopy in the 4400 block of South Oakenwald.

Ward later told police that he and Williams, 20, were looking for rival gang members to shoot and that Hadiya had nothing to do with their street war, prosecutors said.

Just a week before she was gunned down, Hadiya performed as a baton-twirling majorette at festivities surrounding President Barack Obama’s inauguration in the nation’s capital with her school band, prompting national headlines surrounding her death.

First lady Michelle Obama attended the King College Prep student’s funeral.

Nathaniel Pendleton said that he and Hadiya ’s mother, Cleopatra — who stood alongside Barack Obama as he spoke about gun control at the White House Thursday morning — are starting the Hadiya Foundation, an organization that will focus on combating gun violence.

“We’re just trying to make good things come from something bad,” Hadiya ’s father said.

Ward and Williams are currently being held without bail in Cook County Jail.

In addition to murder, they also face attempted murder, aggravated battery, aggravated discharge of a firearm and mob action charges.

Obamas pray for Hadiya ’s family, McCarthy pledges to find killer

John Carpenter — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 13:50:01 -0500

Chicago Sun-Times (IL) - Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Author/Byline: MITCH DUDEK ; Staff Reporter/mdudek@suntimes.com

President Barack Obama and the first lady are praying for the family of Hadiya Pendleton , the 15-year-old girl who attended the president’s inauguration and was fatally shot Tuesday less than a mile from his Kenwood home.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said he was unaware of a petition urging Obama to attend Hadiya ’s funeral.

Carney did say the first family’s “thoughts and prayers are with the family of Hadiya Pendleton ,” who attended inauguration festivities and performed as a baton-twirling majorette with her King College Prep school band at a party sponsored by U.S. Rep Danny K. Davis.

The national attention to Hadiya ’s killing came as Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy pledged Wednesday to find the gunman who fired into a group of Hadiya ’s friends as they sought shelter during a rain storm in a park on the 4500 block of South Oakenwald Avenue in the North Kenwood neighborhood. A 16-year-old boy was shot in the leg during the attack and a teenage girl had a graze wound in her ankle.

A reward totaling $11,000 is being offered to anyone with information leading to the killer. Police encouraged anyone with information on the shooting to call (312) 747-8382. The Rev. Michael Pfleger of St. Sabina Church put $5,000 toward the reward and called it “a bounty out on the head of the killer, before you kill somebody else.”

Correcting initial police reports, McCarthy said that the friends Hadiya was with when she was shot were not gang members.

“Every indication points to the fact that none of the individuals in the group were involved in any sort of criminal activity,” McCarthy said at a Wednesday news conference. “These were good kids by everything that I learned. . . . Wrong place at the wrong time.”

Mayor Rahm Emanuel called the gunman a “punk” Wednesday and reached out to Hadiya ’s parents, Cleopatra and NathanielPendleton .

“Nothing can break your heart more — and I did it just to call as a parent so they know they’re not alone. But, nothing pains you more than calling a fellow parent, trying to comfort them,” the mayor said haltingly, his voice filled with emotion.

“You read about Hadiya . . . . You look at her. You look at how she talked about her future. She took her final exams. She had dreams. And this gang-banger, this punk took that away from Cleopatra. They took it away from Hadiya . . . . They took it away from the city of Chicago. She is what is best in our city. A child going to school who takes a final exam, who had just been to the inaugural.”

The mayor then encouraged anyone with information about Hadiya ’s death to come forward.

Emanuel visited the Pendleton home for about an hour Wednesday evening to offer condolences to the family.

Hadiya ’s relatives said she was with members of her volleyball team when she was shot in the back about three blocks from her school. Hadiya had just finished school exams and was out of school early.

She was planning a trip to Paris this summer, said her father, Nathaniel Pendleton , 42.

Hadiya , who dreamed of being an attorney, bought a commemorative cup at the inauguration for her dad but never got the chance to give it to him.

“Her mother told me where it is,” said Nathaniel Pendleton , a chef who lives with his wife and one other child — a 10-year-old boy — in Bronzeville.

“They took the light of my life. . . . She was destined for great things, and you stripped that from her,” he said.

Hadiya ’s cousin and classmate, Zakiya Bedford, 17, said she had a mean volleyball spike and loved books, Beyonce Knowles and lip gloss, and most of all playing with her little brother, Nathaniel Jr. “She’d flick his ear and he’d grab her nose,” she said.

“She was a wonderful student, she was well-loved by her friends, well-adored by her teachers,” said King Prep Principal Shontae Higginbottom.

Residents on the block where Hadiya was killed — including the CEO of a credit union, the wife of a clinical psychologist and a former Chicago Sun-Times journalist — were surprised by the violence and said the well-kept street is usually quiet and peaceful.

“Anybody who thinks that this territory belongs to a gang is wrong,” McCarthy said. “If I have to put a policeman here 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365, we’re going to make a point that this territory belongs to the community.”

After the shooting, Hadiya ’s godfather, Chicago Police Officer Damon Stewart, said: “As usual, the bad guy aims, but he never hits the other bad guy. . . . He hits the one that hurts the most to lose.”

Contributing:Fran Spielman

MARY MITCHELL: Friend sets record straight: Hadiya was not left alone to die

John Carpenter — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 13:48:50 -0500

Chicago Sun-Times (IL) - Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Author/Byline: MARY MITCHELL ; marym@suntimes.com

Hadiya Pendleton was not left alone.
When an unidentified gunman fired into a crowd of King College Prep students who had gathered in a neighborhood park Tuesday, about a dozen students ran for their lives.

One bullet caught 15-year-old Hadiya in the back, causing her death a short while later.

Another grazed the boot of a 16-year-old classmate and lodged in her boyfriend’s ankle. Another unidentified 16-year-old boy also was wounded and was in good condition.

Contrary to earlier reports, Hadiya , who had just attended presidential inauguration festivities a week earlier, was not left mortally wounded while her classmates ran off.

A 15-year-old classmate who was with the group described the chaotic scene that unfolded when, for no apparent reason, a gunman jumped a fence and opened fire on the students then sped away in a waiting car.

“We were under a little tent thing and a man came up and shot at us about five times,” the girl told me in a phone interview Wednesday afternoon. (Because the shooter is still at large, I am not identifying the girl, or her mother, by name.)

According to the girl, the group had been in the park for about 20 minutes and had sought shelter under a canopy when gunfire erupted.

“We all started running and Hadiya fell down. We were running at about the same pace, and Hadiya said: ‘I think I got shot,’ and slowed, then fell.”

The girl’s boyfriend pushed her out of the way and a bullet grazed her boot and struck his ankle. The boyfriend, who was taken from the scene in an ambulance, was treated at the hospital and released.

Hadiya ’s classmate said a nurse who lived in one of the houses nearby heard the gunshots and came to the scene.

“She told me to hold Hadiya ’s hand, and I had her head in my lap,” the girl told me.

Although earlier reports suggested that most of the teens in the group were gang members, that is not the case.

At a news conference attended by the slain girl’s parents and other relatives at the park on Wednesday, Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy said Hadiya had no arrest record or affiliation with any gang or criminal activity.

“In fact, every indication points to the fact that none of the individuals who were here in the group were involved with any sort of criminal activity,” McCarthy said. “What we believe happened is that this is some sort of territory that some gang might call their own. As a result of that, we believe that somebody mistaking a group that was hanging out here of innocent children returned with a firearm and fired into the crowd killing Hadiya .”

McCarthy said the group immediately dispersed and overnight detectives were “busy scrambling” trying to identify witnesses.

The 15-year-old girl said she was questioned by police at the hospital.

“I just feel that people are getting the story wrong and making other people blame themselves, and it was not even their fault,” she said.

The girl’s mother pointed out that all of the teens in the park were “honor school kids,” and it was “devastating” to see them initially portrayed as “gang members.”

“This is a selective enrollment school. You have to place high to get into this school. These kids are bright kids,” she said. “It was totally wrong for these kids to be called gang members.”

Hadiya and the other wounded students were innocent victims in the same way that the 20 children in Newtown, Conn., were innocent victims.

But unfortunately, some of us don’t see it that way. Frankly, some of the emails I received about this tragedy were shameful.

Instead of blaming the shooter, some of you leaped at the chance to blame Hadiya for hanging out with gang-bangers who didn’t stick around to cooperate with police.

In reality, these were clean-cut teens who were simply trying to unwind in a public park after a grueling day of final exams.

Hadiya ’s classmates aren’t the bad guys.

They didn’t create a world where someone with evil intentions can walk into a park in the middle of the afternoon and kill at will.

They are the heroes.

What does that make us?

‘A WALKING ANGEL’

John Carpenter — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 13:47:32 -0500

Chicago Sun-Times (IL) - Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Author/Byline: BY MITCH DUDEK ; Staff Reporter ;

A week after attending presidential inauguration festivities in the nation’s capital and with dreams of a summer trip to Paris swirling in her 15-year-old imagination, Hadiya Pendleton was shot and killed Tuesday afternoon in the South Side’s Kenwood neighborhood.
Police say Hadiya was shot in the back at a neighborhood park about 2:30 p.m. in the 4500 block of South Oakenwald Avenue. A teen boy was also shot in the leg and taken to Comer’s Children’s Hospital in serious condition.

“As usual, the bad guy aims, but he never hits the other bad guy. . . . He hits the one that hurts the most to lose,” said Chicago Police Officer Damon Stewart, who is also Hadiya ’s godfather. “I changed her diapers, I played with her growing up. My heart is broken.”

The shooting happened about three blocks from King College Prep, where Hadiya attended high school, played on the volleyball team and was a majorette with the band. The park is a little less than a mile from President Barack Obama’s Kenwood home.

Last week, Hadiya went to Washington to see Obama’s ceremonial swearing in with a group of fellow King students, relatives said.

“She went to the inauguration. She was working on some sort of exchange program, where she was going to go to school in Paris,” Stewart said. “She was a great student.”

“Believe it or not, her mom was just looking to move to Naperville,” said Hadiya ’s cousin, Shatira Wilks. “Her mom wanted her to take her kids to an even better community and make sure her education is number one. Her daughter has never, ever given her mother a problem; this girl was literally a walking angel.”

Police say Hadiya was one of about 12 teens who were hanging out under a canopy at a park to avoid the rain when a man jumped a fence, ran toward the group and opened fire.

Everyone scrambled, but Hadiya was hit in the back and died. The gunman got in a car and drove off. Police said Hadiya had no arrest history and doesn’t appear to be in a gang. But preliminary information indicates most of the members of the group that she was with were gang members.

None of the group stuck around to help Hadiya or wait for the police.

“By all indications the female victim was an unintended target,” a police statement said.

About 50 friends and family gathered for support Tuesday evening at Comer’s Children’s Hospital.

“She’s a huge reader, loves stories and novels and was naturally smart, always on the honor roll,” Wilks said. “She was caught up in the violence of the city.”

Hadiya , who attended grade school at Providence St. Mel, lived in Bronzeville with her mother, father and younger brother, relatives said.

Residents on the block where Hadiya was killed expressed shock.

Robin Hollis, who has lived across the street from the park for about 20 years, said the park has “always been a quiet place.”

‘Think of Hadiya ,’ Emanuel says, urging aid in finding 15-year-old’s killer

John Carpenter — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 13:46:37 -0500

Chicago Sun-Times (IL) - Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Author/Byline: FRAN SPIELMAN ; City Hall Reporter ;

An emotional Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday denounced the “punk” who cut down a bubbly 15-year-old girl who had just taken exams after returning from President Barack Obama’s second inaugural in Washington D.C.
Hadiya Pendleton , a student at King College Prep, was shot in the back Tuesday afternoon while hanging out with a group of friends at Harsh Park in Kenwood.

About a dozen kids were huddled under a canopy seeking shelter from the rain when a gunman jumped a fence, ran toward the students and opened fire.

A teenage boy was also shot in the leg during the attack.

On Wednesday, Emanuel made the gut-wrenching phone call that every mayor dreads. He reached out to Hadiya ’s mother, Cleopatra, to console her on the unspeakable loss of a child.

“You read about Hadiya . ... You look at her. You look at how she talked about her future. She took her final exams. She had dreams. And this gang-banger, this punk took that away from Cleopatra. They took it away from Hadiya . ... They took it away from the city of Chicago. She is what is best in our city. A child going to school who takes a final exam, who had just been to the inaugural.”

The mayor then lapsed into what has become a familiar refrain: encouraging anyone with information about another senseless murder on Chicago streets to come forward and reveal what they know or saw.

“If anybody has any information, you are not a snitch. You’re a citizen. You’re a good citizen in good standing if you help. And I hope whoever has information comes forward and does that,” Emanuel said.

“I want everybody to take a moment and think of Cleopatra and her family and to think of Hadiya . ... The good news is [the boy who was shot] is eager to get back to school. The bad news is that Hadiya can’t. And it is incumbent upon all of us who have a responsibility to see a stop to this. And all of us are responsible — all adults.”

Chicago ended 2012 with 506 homicides, a 16 percent increase over the year before. January is off to a similarly bloody start, with seven murders over the weekend and three more Tuesday, all of them in broad daylight.

Emanuel said the answer to stopping the violence is a complex mix of investing more money in after-school programs and summer jobs; passing tougher gun laws and increasing penalties for gun crimes to the three-year average in New York instead of Chicago’s six months and “better policing and better tactics.” He refused to reveal specifics.

“As recently as this morning, I was at a meeting with [PoliceSupt.] Garry McCarthy going over what we need to do, what differences we have to do, what other tactics we have to adopt,” Emanuel said.

“But, it’s not just a policing issue. Those kids just took a final. They have a right to be able to be at a playground near their school [before] they go home.”

The mayor bristled when asked whether the fact that Hadiya was murdered less than a mile away from Obama’s Kenwood mansion was a “wake-up call” to him and McCarthy.

“While you may say it’s a mile from the president’s house, my view is it’s in the city of Chicago and, regardless of where it happens, it doesn’t matter,” the mayor said.

“As I’ve said repeatedly, you can’t be in Ravenswood and, if something happens in Roseland, say it’s only in Roseland. You can’t be in Sauganash and say if it happens in South Shore, it doesn’t affect me. It’s our city. These are our children.”

One week after attending inaugural, South Side teen shot dead in neighborhood park

John Carpenter — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 13:44:59 -0500

Chicago Sun-Times (IL) - Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Author/Byline: MITCH DUDEK ; Staff Reporter ; mdudek@suntimes.com

A week after attending presidential inauguration festivities in the nation’s capital and with dreams of a summer trip to Paris swirling in her 15-year-old imagination, Hadiya Pendleton was shot and killed Tuesday afternoon in the South Side’s Kenwood neighborhood.

Police say Hadiyawas shot in the back at a neighborhood park about 2:30 p.m. in the 4500 block of South Oakenwald. A teen boy was shot in the leg and taken to Comer’s Children’s Hospital in serious condition.

“As usual, the bad guy aims, but he never hits the other bad guy . . . He hits the one that hurts the most to lose,” said Chicago Police Officer Damon Stewart, 36, Hadiya ’s godfather. “I changed her diapers, I played with her growing up. My heart is broken.”

The shooting happened about three blocks from King College Prep, where Hadiya attended high school, played on the volleyball team and was a majorette with the band. The park where she was killed is a little less than a mile from President Barack Obama’s Kenwood home.

Last week, Hadiya went to Washington to see Obama’s ceremonial swearing in with a group of fellow King students, relatives said.

“She went to the inauguration. She was working on some sort of exchange program, where she was going to go to school in Paris,” Stewart said. “She was a great student.”

“Believe it or not, her mom was just looking to move to Naperville,” said Hadiya ’s cousin, Shatira Wilks. “Her mom wanted her to take her kids to an even better community and make sure her education is number one. Her daughter has never ever given her mother a problem, this girl was literally a walking angel.”

Police say Hadiya was one of about 12 teens who were hanging out under a canopy at the park to avoid the rain when a man jumped a fence, ran toward the group and opened fire. Everyone scrambled, but Hadiya was hit in the back and died. The gunman got in a car and drove off. Police said Hadiya had no arrest history and doesn’t appear to have been in a gang. But preliminary information indicated that other members of the group she was with were gang members. No one in the group stuck around to help Hadiya or wait for the police. “By all indications the female victim was an unintended target,” a police statement said.

About 50 friends and family gathered for support Tuesday evening at Comer’s Children’s Hospital.

“She’s a huge reader, loves stories and novels and was naturally smart, always on the honor roll,” Wilks said. “She was caught up in the violence of the city.”

Hadiya , who attended grade school at Providence St. Mel, lived in Bronzeville with her mother, father and younger brother, relatives said.

Residents on the block where Hadiya was killed expressed shock.

Robin Hollis, who has lived across the street from the park for about 20 years, said the park has “always been a quiet place.”

Hadiya Pendleton appeared in 2008 anti-gang video

John Carpenter — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 13:37:08 -0500

Chicago Sun-Times (IL) - Friday, February 1, 2013

Author/Byline: JON SEIDEL AND FRAN SPIELMAN ; Staff Reporters

The King College Prep student shot to death this week less than a mile from President Barack Obama’s Kenwood home appeared in an online video four years ago to warn kids about the dangers of gangs.

It opens with the words, “Hi, my name is Hadiya .”

“This commercial is informational for you and your future children,” said 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton .

She paused to let another student introduce herself, then Hadiya went on to say, “So many children out there are in gangs.”

“And it is your job as students to say ‘no’ to gangs and ‘yes’ to a great future,” she said.

Pendleton , who performed as a majorette at Obama’s inauguration celebrations, has quickly become a national symbol of Chicago’s gun violence.

Ald. Pat Dowell (3rd), whose South Side ward is home to the Pendleton family, said it’s heartbreaking that Hadiya lost her life to the very gang violence she condemned in the November 2008 video.

“Maybe her message holds more sway now, unfortunately, [now] that this incident had to bring that to the forefront,” Dowell said.

She added, “When I went to her house and watched her friends and her family — I mean, this is a decent and honest and good family. Mother and father, intact home. Typical teenagers. It’s heartbreaking that this tragic incident happened to her.”

The video was posted by the Digital Youth Network. The group issued a statement Thursday that described the teen as a “student, a learner and a creative voice.”

“ Hadiya and her peers produced this PSA as a part of a project that sought to counter violence through youth produced media,” it said. “The project exemplifies the critical importance of empowering our youth to find and share their voice. We are inspired by the passion Hadiya and the youth of Chicago have shown for sculpting a better future for themselves and others and will continue to support these efforts in any way we can.”

Shatira Wilks, Hadiya ’s cousin, said the video was made when her cousin was a sixth-grader at Carter G. Woodson School. Wilks said she first saw the video Wednesday.

“ Hadiya has always been a person against violence,” Wilks said. “She didn’t even like the idea of people fighting.”

She said the death of her cousin — “a walking angel” — might have been “a mandatory request from God.”

“Maybe it was her time to be with him,” Wilks said.

A gunman fired into a group of Hadiya ’s friends as they sought shelter during a rainstorm Tuesday in a park on the 4500 block of South Oakenwald in the North Kenwood neighborhood. A 16-year-old boy was shot in the leg and a teenage girl had a graze wound in her ankle.

Hadiya was shot in the back and died. Police Supt. Garry McCarthy said neither Hadiya nor the friends she was with when she was shot were gang members.

McCarthy offered no specific updates on the murder investigation at a news conference with Mayor Rahm Emanuel called Thursday to announce the reassignment of 200 police officers from desk jobs to street duty,

But, McCarthy said the no-snitch policy that has impeded so many police investigations is apparently not impacting the search for Hadiya ’s killer.

“Father [Michael] Pfleger and a number of us had a community meeting where the community demanded that the community help solve this crime. Well, they’re stepping up to the plate. We’re getting a lot of calls,” he said.

“We have to run down every single one of those tips now and see which one is going to prove fruitful for us. There’s nothing to report at this time.”

The outrage over Hadiya ’s death has reached all the way to the White House, and a reward totaling $11,000 is being offered to anyone with information leading to the killer.

Police have encouraged anyone with information on the shooting to call (312) 747-8383.

Pfleger, of St. Sabina Church, put $5,000 toward the reward and called it “a bounty out on the head of the killer, before you kill somebody else.”