Lavander Hearnes | Homicide Watch Chicagohttp://homicides.suntimes.com/victims/lavander-hearnes/Latest news about Lavander Hearnesen-usMon, 26 Aug 2013 15:26:18 -0500East Garfield Park teen, readying for freshman year, killed at back-to-school block partyhttp://homicides.suntimes.com/2013/08/26/teen-readying-for-freshman-year-killed-at-back-to-school-block-party/<p>An endless stream of people came to see Barbara Perry Monday morning, as she sat in a wooden arm chair in a shady corner of her backyard.</p> <p><a href="http://homicides.suntimes.com/victims/lavander-hearnes/" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://homicides.suntimes.com']);"><img src="http://wordpress.homicidewatch.org/chicago/files/2013/08/Lavander-Hearnes-208x300.jpg" alt="Lavander Hearnes" width="208" height="300" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-2018" /></a></p> <p>“As the days pass, it will get better,” the East Garfield Park mother said — more a question than a fact.</p> <p>None of the half dozen or so family and friends clustered around Perry offered an answer.</p> <p>Perry had just lost her 14-year-old son, <a href="http://homicides.suntimes.com/victims/lavander-hearnes/" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://homicides.suntimes.com']);">Lavander Hearnes</a> — shot at the tail end of what had been a back-to-school block party, near his home on West Gladys Avenue and within a block of the Safe Passage route the day before school. Police said Hearnes was standing with a group of people when shots rang out shortly after midnight Sunday. A bullet hit Hearnes in the chest. He died Sunday morning at Mount Sinai Hospital, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office. <span id="more-2017"></span></p> <p>“All we heard was gunshots and then everybody got running,” said Nene Fort, 38, who lives on the block where the shooting occurred. “I went in the house and I ain’t come out since.”</p> <p>Friends came running to Perry’s home, where she’s lived for 16 years, to deliver the crushing news.</p> <p>“I’m so tired of crying,” Perry said, clutching a photograph of her smiling son. “My heart is aching.”</p> <p>Hearnes was Perry’s only son — a kid who was big for his age and obsessed with all things NFL.</p> <p>He’d played football since the age of nine. He could play lots of positions, but — with a 170-pound frame — he excelled as a middle</p> <p>linebacker, his mother said. A pile of football trophies sat on his bedroom dresser. He had a nickname — “Fat Shorty” — because he’d been chubby growing up, his mother said.</p> <p>He graduated from Edward C. Delano Elementary School and was preparing for his first year at Manley Career Academy, his mother said.</p> <p>“He was our ticket out of the ghetto,” said Perry’s brother-in-law, Ray Hightower.</p> <p>Perry wasn’t thinking about any of that Monday, as she kissed the photograph of her boy.</p> <p>“He’s my baby,” she said.</p> Stefano EspositoMon, 26 Aug 2013 15:26:18 -0500http://homicides.suntimes.com/2013/08/26/teen-readying-for-freshman-year-killed-at-back-to-school-block-party/Lavander HearnesTeen boy killed in West Side shootinghttp://homicides.suntimes.com/2013/08/25/teen-boy-killed-in-west-side-shooting/<p>A 14-year-old boy died after he was shot on the West Side early Sunday.</p> <p>About 12:20 a.m., 14-year-old <a href="http://homicides.suntimes.com/victims/lavander-hearnes/" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://homicides.suntimes.com']);">Lavander Hearnes</a> was standing outside in the 4000 block of West Wilcox Street with several other people when he heard shots and felt pain, authorities said.</p> <p><span id="more-2012"></span></p> <p>He was shot in the left side of his chest and taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in critical condition, police said.</p> <p>Lavander, of the 3900 block of West Wilcox, was pronounced dead at Mount Sinai Hospital at 9:04 a.m., the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office said.</p> <p>No one was in custody as Area North detectives investigated.</p> <p>The boy was shot less than two blocks away from the site of an Aug. 18 shooting that left one person dead and another three wounded.</p> Luke WiluszSun, 25 Aug 2013 19:54:17 -0500http://homicides.suntimes.com/2013/08/25/teen-boy-killed-in-west-side-shooting/Lavander Hearnes