Jerome T. Wright | Homicide Watch Chicago

WEEK IN REVIEW: At least 21 killed in Chicago, including three members of family slain by man who took his own life

Jeff Mayes — Tue, 17 May 2016 16:00:58 -0500

By JEFF MAYES
Chicago Sun-Times Wire

At least 21 people died from violence in the bloodiest week of the year last week in Chicago, including three members of the same family who were shot to death in their home by a man who later took his own life in a standoff with police.

Also killed during the week were a young man whose turnaround story of going from the gang life to student leader was detailed in a CNN documentary; a girl who was both an honor student and track star at Jones College Prep; and a man who served several years as a correctional officer at the Cook COunty Jail.

Eight people died over the weekend, including 17-year-old aspiring rapper Stacey Fluckes, who performed as LilMuney TheRapper. He was shot to death Sunday night in North Lawndale.

Officers responded to a call of shots fired about 9 p.m. in the 1500 block of South Karlov, where they found Fluckes unresponsive with a gunshot wound to the chest, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office. He was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 9:26 p.m..

Willie Jones was fatally shot Sunday afternoon in the West Side Austin neighborhood. Officers responding to a call of shots fired in the 0-100 block of North Lorel at 2:33 p.m. found the 35-year-old unresponsive in an alley, according to police and the medical examiner’s office. He suffered gunshot wounds to the head and back, and was pronounced dead at the scene at 2:36 p.m..

A 35-year-old man was found shot to death early Sunday, also in Austin. Frank M. Hill Jr. was found inside a car in the 5000 block of West Washington Boulevard at 7:12 a.m. with a gunshot wound to the head, according to police and the medical examiner’s office.

Hill, of the 6100 block of South Talman, was pronounced dead at the scene at 7:24 a.m.

A 23-year-old man was fatally shot early Sunday in Little Village. Just before 5 a.m., Marco Mendez was riding in a vehicle in the 2500 block of South Whipple when someone in a black SUV opened fire, according to police and the medical examiner’s office.

He suffered a gunshot wound to the face, police said. The driver took him to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 6:35 a.m. He lived in the same block where the shooting happened.

Also Sunday, a man fatally shot a woman, then himself, in an SUV on the Kennedy Expressway on the Northwest Side, authorities said.

Crews responded about 4 a.m. to the shooting in the northbound lanes of I-90/94 north of Armitage Avenue, where they found a silver Chevrolet Tahoe stopped on the expressway, according to Illinois State Police.

The 43-year-old driver, Eric L. Taylor, and 36-year-old passenger, Camille C. Cooley, were each found with a gunshot wound to the head and pronounced dead at the scene, according to the medical examiner’s office.

An autopsy Monday ruled Taylor’s death a suicide, while Cooley’s death was ruled a homicide.

A 16-year-old honor student and track star was fatally stabbed Saturday evening in the South Side Parkway Gardens complex. De'Kayla Dansberry was stabbed in the chest after a fight broke out about 7:30 p.m. in the 6500 block of South King Drive, according to police and the medical examiner’s office.

She was taken to Stroger Hospital, where she died at 8:24 p.m., authorities said. On Monday, police said a 13-year-old girl had been charged as a juvenile with De'Kayla's murder.

A 32-year-old man was shot to death Saturday afternoon in Austin. Kevin Milton was in the driver’s seat of a car about 3:45 p.m. in the 800 block of North Waller when someone walked up and shot him in the chest, according to police and the medical examiner’s office.

He managed to take himself to West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park, where he was pronounced dead at 4:14 p.m. He lived less than a block from where the shooting happened.

A 20-year-old man was fatally shot just minutes earlier Saturday afternoon, also in Austin. Albert Hurd was outside at 3:42 p.m. in the 5300 block of West Harrison when a dark colored vehicle drove up and someone inside fired shots, according to police and the medical examiner’s office.

He was shot in the chest, arm and abdomen; and was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital where he was pronounced dead at 5:25 p.m.

A man was killed and another wounded in a drive-by shooting late Friday in University Village. Mark Vargas and another man, both 21, were standing on a sidewalk in the 1200 block of West Grenshaw about 11:45 p.m. when someone in a dark-colored van fired shots, according to police.

Friends drove the men to Stroger Hospital. Vargas, of the 900 block of West 19th Street, was shot in the chest and abdomen, and was pronounced dead at Stroger at 12:13 a.m. Saturday, according to police and the medical examiner’s office. The other man was shot in the arm and his condition was stabilized.

A 47-year-old man was found shot to death Friday morning in the Washington Park neighborhood. Officers responding to reports of shots fired in the 5400 block of South Indiana at 11:55 a.m. found Michael Harmon unresponsive in a vehicle with a gunshot wound to the head, according to police and the medical examiner’s office.

Harmon, of the 1200 block of West 73rd Street, was pronounced dead at the scene at 12:18 p.m. An autopsy found he died of multiple gunshot wounds.

A South Side man whose transformational story was featured in the CNN documentary “Chicagoland” was killed earlier Thursday. Lee McCollum III was found unresponsive on the ground with a gunshot wound to the head at 12:37 a.m. in the 500 block of West 126th Street, according to police and the medical examiner's office.

McCollum, 22, of the 11400 block of South Yale, was pronounced dead at the scene. He was portrayed in the 2014 CNN documentary as a teen who had turned his life around, from street thug to student leader, with plans for college. McCollum was on his way to his job at a Wendy’s restaurant when he was fatally shot, family members said.

The suspect in the fatal shooting of three members of the same family Wednesday night in Englewood took his own life after a lengthy standoff with police Thursday afternoon on the Far South Side.

Killed in the domestic-related shooting about 11:20 p.m. Wednesday in the 1500 block of West 71st Street were 50-year-old Jerome T. Wright; his 26-year-old step-daughter Makeesha Starks; and his 26-year-old daughter Kiara Kinard.

They were in a house when Starks' boyfriend, Kevin Robinson, came in and started shooting, according to police sources.

Wright, of the 1500 block of West 74th Street; and Starks, who lived on the block where the shooting happened, were both shot in the head and pronounced dead at the scene, authorities said. Kinard, of the 7700 block of South Seeley, was shot in the back and was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where she died hours later.

Robinson was found early the next morning barricaded in a home near 103rd and Union, where a standoff with police, including an exchange of gunfire, lasted nearly 10 hours. A SWAT team eventually forced its way into the home and found Robinson with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, police said.

A former Cook County correctional officer was shot to death early Wednesday during an attempted robbery in the Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood. Ira Cotton, 56, was standing on a front porch in the 7400 block of South Ingleside about 12:10 a.m. when someone walked up and demanded his car keys before shooting him in the left leg, according to police and the Cook County sheriff’s office.

Cotton was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he was later pronounced dead. He worked as a correctional officer from 1983 to 2004, a sheriff’s office spokeswoman said.

A man shot to death in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood on Tuesday evening was identified as 20-year-old Deangelo Diggines. He was standing in the 7700 block of South Aberdeen about 5:49 p.m. when someone got out of an SUV and shot him in the back before driving off, according to police and the medical examiner's office. He was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he was pronounced dead.

A man died after a shooting Monday evening that also left a 16-year-old boy wounded in Auburn Gresham. The two were shot about 6:45 p.m. in the 7600 block of South Emerald, police said.

Marquel Sharp, 18, suffered a gunshot wound to the head and was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he was pronounced dead at 1:36 p.m. Tuesday, according to police and the medical examiner’s office. He lived in Gary, Indiana.

A 16-year-old boy was shot in the hip and was also taken to Christ Medical Center, police said. His condition had stabilized. Investigators believe the shooting to be domestic-related.

Two men died after a shooting Monday morning in East Garfield Park. They were in the 3000 block of West Jackson at 11:47 a.m. when a gunman walked up, pulled out a gun and fired multiple times, according to police.

Both men were shot multiple times and were taken to Stroger Hospital, police said. Jeremy Hosey, 26, died at Stroger at 12:18 p.m., according to the medical examiner’s office. He lived in the 3700 block of West Grenshaw. An autopsy found he died of a gunshot wound to the torso.

Michael Cunningham, 35, died at the hospital at 1:05 p.m. He lived in the 4000 block of West Wilcox. An autopsy found he died of a gunshot wound to the abdomen.

A woman has been charged with stabbing her boyfriend, Kimble Knox, to death early Monday in Kenwood. Sherry L. Robinson, 50, was charged with first-degree murder for stabbing the 51-year-old Knox in the chest with a knife during an argument about 12:30 a.m. in her apartment in the 4500 block of South Drexel, police said.

Knox was pronounced dead at the scene. Robinson initially told investigators her boyfriend was stabbed during an attempted robbery, police said. She is being held on a $2 million bond.

A 15-year-old South Side boy died early Monday, about 10 days after being shot in Englewood. Ladarrius Jackson was walking in the 6800 block of South Sangamon about 8 p.m. April 29 when someone walked up and opened fire, striking him repeatedly in the leg and abdomen, according to police and the medical examiner’s office.

Jackson was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he died at 4:05 a.m. Monday. No arrests have been made, police said Monday night.

Police: Suspect took his own life after standoff following slayings of Jerome Wright, Kiara Kinard and Makeesha Starks

Jeff Mayes — Fri, 13 May 2016 12:15:54 -0500

By ANDY GRIMM, LUKE WILUSZ and JEFF MAYES
Chicago Sun-Times

Police investigate after three people were killed in a shooting Wednesday night in Englewood. | Network Video Productions

After a 10-hour standoff Thursday, Chicago SWAT officers stormed a South Side home to find the suspect in the killings of Makeesha Starks, Kiara Kinard and Jerome T. Wright dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said.

Police said about 9 a.m., Kevin Robinson fired a dozen shots at SWAT team officers who had taken up positions outside a home in the 10300 block of South Union, prompting officers to return fire. Robinson had been on the phone with a police hostage negotiator moments before opening fire on officers from a second-floor window.

It was the last communication officers would have with Robinson, who police said killed Wright, his daughter and step-daughter at a home in Englewood about 10 hours earlier.

In the hours that followed, SWAT officers blocked streets in the neighborhood for hours and warned neighbors to hide in their basements. Over a bullhorn, a hostage negotiator played a recorded message from Robinson’s mother, who waited, out of sight, with relatives. Starting around noon, police began launching canisters of tear gas into the house.

An armored vehicle can be seen parked outside a home on Union Avenue south of 103rd Street Thursday morning. A person in the home was a person of interest in a triple homicide that occurred Wednesday night, police said. | Andy Grimm/Sun-Times

“Kevin, it’s your mother. Come outside. I love you. Please come out,” the pleading voice of Robinson’s mother, Linda McPherson, said on a recording that played throughout the late morning and early afternoon over a police bullhorn. “Don’t bring out any weapons and put your hands up. ... please, think about it.”

When SWAT officers kicked in the door about 1 p.m., they found Robinson dead in the same bedroom from which he had fired on police, a gun in his hand, CPD Deputy Chief Steve Georgas told reporters.

Makeesha Starks | Facebook

Robinson had suffered an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, Georgas said. He was pronounced dead at 3:12 p.m., accoridng to the Cook County medical examiner's office. It was not clear if Robinson was also struck by the barrage of return fire from SWAT officers as well, Georgas said.

On Wednesday night, police said, Robinson shot the mother of one of his children, the 26-year-old Starks; her sister, Kinard, also 26; and her stepfather, Wright, 50, at a home in the 1500 block of West 71st Street.

Wright, of the 1500 block of West 74th Street; and Starks, who lived on the block where the shooting happened, were both shot in the head and pronounced dead at the scene, authorities said.

Kinard, of the 7700 block of South Seeley, was shot in the back, and was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where she died at 2:37 a.m., authorities said.

Kiara Kinard | Facebook

Both sisters worked on the Rush University Medical Center campus, a spokesman said. Kincaid was a part-time employee of the hospital, while Kinard worked at the Au Bon Pain restaurant at Rush, spokesman John Pontarelli said.

"The Rush community is deeply saddened by this tragedy," he said in a statement.

Wright was an employed as a traffic aide for the city's OEMC, according to his Facebook page.

They were killed about 11:20 p.m. Wednesday in the 1500 block of West 71st Street. They were inside the home when Robinson showed up and started shooting, according to police.

A GoFundMe page has been set up to help pay funeral costs.

Jerome Watson | Facebook

Not long after SWAT officers emerged from the Fernwood house, Robinson’s sister, Kedra, huddled with family in an alley across the street. Kedra Robinson said she had rushed to the house early Thursday and spent the day waiting with family, hoping Robinson would leave the house unharmed.

Kedra Robinson said Starks had been “like a sister” to her, and she did not know whether her brother had killed anyone. Her version of how her brother died differed starkly from the police account. She said Kevin Robinson was on the phone with his mother, preparing to surrender, when he was shot.

“They was trying to kill him instead of trying to bring him in,” Robinson told reporters, as a woman who said she was Starks’ sister tried to shout her down.

“I’m not gonna argue with you all, y’all lost a loved one, I lost a loved one,” Robinson shouted back. “They have to have hard evidence to link anybody to any type of murder.”

Guglielmi said Robinson had fled to the South Union house in the city’s Ferndale neighborhood to hide out with a former girlfriend with whom he also had a child. The woman let him in, but called police after Robinson fell asleep. Officers from the 22nd District sneaked the woman and her child out of the house sometime after 3 a.m., and then called in SWAT officers.

The Independent Police Review Authority will review the case, Guglielmi said. The SWAT team was deployed more than 1,000 times in the last four years, and only four suspects were killed, he said.

After SWAT officers surrounded the house, negotiators tried to reach Robinson by phone and loudspeaker, Georgas said.

“We did have a short conversation with him, he did answer a phone,” he said. “That conversation did not go anywhere. It was shortly after that when he appeared at the window and fired 10 to 12 shots at our officers.”

Kevin Robinson | Chicago Police

Linda McPherson, Robinson’s mother, had arrived at the South Union house from her home in Hammond, Indiana, early Thursday morning, and spent the day waiting with police, family spokesman Eric Russell said.

Family members offered to approach the house and try to get Robinson to give up, but police refused their help. In a version of events that differed starkly from the police version, Russell told reporters Robinson was on the phone with her son—he did not know for sure what time—and had told her he wanted to surrender, when she heard gunshots and another man’s voice, Russell said.

“She unfortunately did hear her son take his last breaths,” Russell said, noting the family had hired an attorney.

“They say he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound,” Russell said. “Quite frankly, the family simply is not buying that narrative.”

But police Superintendent Eddie Johnson told reporters Robinson was a felon previously convicted oarmed robbery and aggravated battery; and arrested for attempted murder.

He said Robinson served under two years of an eight-year sentence for armed robbery, and that points out a flaw in the criminal justice system, with violent felons released after serving too little time.

"We have too many guns in Chicago and too many people willing to use those guns," Johnson said.

Jerome Wright, Makeesha Starks and Kiara Kinard gunned down in domestic-related shooting in Englewood

Jeff Mayes — Thu, 12 May 2016 11:46:44 -0500

By ANDY GRIMM, LUKE WILUSZ and JORDAN OWEN
Chicago Sun-Times

Police investigate after three people were killed in a shooting Wednesday night in Englewood. | Network Video Productions

A person of interest in a fatal shooting spree that left Jerome T. Wright, Makeesha Starks and Kiara Kinard dead in Englewood late Wednesday has been barricaded inside a building in the Fernwood neighborhood for more than five hours Thursday morning.

The killings, which police called domestic-related, happened about 11:20 p.m. Wednesday in the 1500 block of West 71st Street, according to Chicago Police. The suspected killer later took his own life following a long standoff with police in the Far South Side Fernwood neighborhood.

Wright, 50, and the two 26-year-old women, who were all related, were inside their home about 11:20 p.m. by a man they knew who started shooting, according to police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

Wright, of the 1500 block of West 74th Street; and Starks, who lived on the block where the shooting happened, were shot in the head and pronounced dead at the scene, authorities said.

Kinard, of the 7700 block of South Seeley, was shot in the back, and was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where she died at 2:37 a.m., authorities said.

Police said the shooting appears to have been domestic-related, but did not elaborate on Thursday morning.

Wright was the father of Starks, whose boyfriend is believed to be the shooter, police sources said. Several other people, including children, were in the home at the time, but were not injured.

About 4:15 a.m. Thursday, a SWAT team was called to search a building at 103rd and Union on the Far South Side.

Chicago Police later confirmed the suspect was inside the building, the perimeter has been secured and police had made contact with all the neighbors.

After an hours-long standoff, a SWAT team finally forced its way into the home, only to find the man dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said Thursday.