let's talk a little bit about what is wrong with chicago

[nrv216]

13 shot in south side park last night

Semecha Nunn tried hard to talk about her 3-year-old grandson, one of 13 people shot as neighbors played basketball in Cornell Square Park in the Back of the Yards Thursday night.

"They need to stop, they need to stop," Nunn said, the last word coming out as almost a shriek as she closed her eyes and collapsed crying. The victims ranged from 3 to 41 and included a 15-year-old boy and a 17-year-old girl. Three of them, including the boy, were in serious to critical condition.

Witnesses told police a gray sedan pulled up to the park around 10:15 p.m. and two men started firing in the 1800 block of West 51st Street.

"I think it was like an AK," said one neighbor. "Man, it was a lot of shots. Man, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. A little boy got hit in the face."

Another neighbor said he was across the park from the basketball court when he heard as many as 20 shots. "I was across the park and I heard the shots and I came over and there was a lot of people down. It happened so fast. They were just playing ball, like they do everyday."

The first paramedics found more than a dozen people lying across the rust-colored court. One person lay near a bicycle that was on its side. A pair of white gym shoes was left near an out-of-bounds line.

Ambulances continued to arrive a half hour after the shootings as wounded people were brought out of the park on stretchers. About 60 police officers converged on the park and crime lab investigators combed the scene. By about 12:30 a.m. Friday, firefighters used hoses to clean blood from the basketball court.

The wounded boy, identified by family as Deonta' Howard, was shot near the ear, the bullet exiting through his cheek, according to police and relatives. He was in critical condition at Mount Sinai Hospital, police said.

Nunn said her grandson is heavily sedated and will need plastic surgery. “He tried to get up and go, he’s not trying to be pinned down by nobody,’’ she said.

“He’s not your average 3-year-old," Nunn said. "He’s very smart, he’s beyond his years. I don’t know if you’ve heard the saying, 'He’s an old soul.' That’s the best words to describe him. He’s an old soul.

“He's friendly for the most part, very outgoing, outspoken,’’ Nunn said. “He likes the limelight, he’ll let you know who he is."

Mayra Rodriguez, 23, who lives in the area with her 2-year-old daughter, heard rapid gunfire and then saw people on the ground. “Good thing most of them got hit in the legs,’’ she said.

“That kid was playing, he didn’t even know nothing, it was out of nowhere,’’ she said of the 3-year-old.

Rodriguez said there was a fatal shooting in the park about two years ago, and she tries to avoid it.

Rodriguez and her mother, Elvia Gonzalez, 45, said they had heard gunfire earlier in the evening, around 4:30 p.m. or 5 p.m. Rodriguez said her daughter was playing outside at that time and Gonzalez grabbed the girl and ran inside the house.

As the two talked Thursday night, the 2-year-old girl walked toward the street from the parkway and peered around the corner toward 51st Street to watch the last ambulance leave. She rested one hand on her mother’s leg as she chewed a finger.

Earlier, as her mother spoke, the girl twirled around a light pole. She wore tiny gold hoop earrings, purple pants and a red T-shirt that read, "My heart belongs to Grandpa."

“She don’t even know. . .She’s just pointing at the light,’’ Rodriguez said.

Alejandro Cabada, 20, leaned out of his second-floor window near 50th and Wood streets about an hour after the shooting. He said he’s lived in the area for about seven years.

“Once I opened a beer can, I heard shots,’’ Cabada said. “I opened the fence in the back. They reversed up the alley and then toward Ashland, the car peeled out.’’

“A brown Malibu with tints dipped toward Ashland Avenue. . . A brown Malibu with its lights off was peeling off,’’ Cabada said. “Some young kid said they shot his little brother.

“That was pretty much it, I just seen bodies on the floor, I seen three officers carrying the little boy. I didn’t heard no sounds.’’

Two other victims were initially taken to hospitals in serious-to-critical condition, according to the Fire Department. Four were in fair-to-serious condition and four were in good-to-fair condition, according to the Fire Department.

Police listed the victims as:

• A 3-year-old boy, shot in the ear, in critical condition at Mount Sinai

• A 17-year-old girl, shot in the foot, condition stabilized at Holy Cross Hospital

• A 15-year-old boy shot in the arm, stabilized at Holy Cross

• A man, 27, shot in the leg and wrist, serious condition at Mount Sinai

• A man, 24, shot twice in the stomach, serious condition at Mount Sinai

• A man, 21, shot in the leg, serious condition at Mount Sinai

• A man, 41, shot in the buttocks, serious condition at John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital

• A woman, 33, shot in the shoulder, condition stabilized at Northwestern Memorial Hospital

• A man, 31, shot in the buttocks, condition stabilized at Northwestern

• A woman, 23, shot in the foot, condition stabilized at St. Anthony Hospital

• A man, 37, shot in the leg, in good condition at Stroger

• A man, 25, shot in the knee, in good condition at Northwestern

• And a man, 33, who drove himself to Little Company of Mary Hospital in Evergreen Park with a gunshot wound to the leg and who was treated and released.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel was headed back to Chicago from Washington, D.C., where he was scheduled to meet today with Obama administration Cabinet secretaries on city issues, mayoral spokeswoman Sarah Hamilton said. Emanuel flew to D.C. last night ahead of swing that also was supposed to include a political fundraiser for Democratic New Jersey U.S. Senate candidate Cory Booker.

Emanuel also released a statement this morning about the Back of the Yards shooting. "Senseless and brazen acts of violence have no place in Chicago and betray all that we stand for. The perpetrators of this crime will be brought to justice and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. I encourage everyone in the community to step forward with any information and everyone in Chicago to continue their individual efforts to build stronger communities where violence has no place," the statement reads.

Tribune reporter Liam Ford contributed

[email protected] | Twitter: @ChicagoBreaking


First of all, why is a three year old in a park on the south side at 10:15 at night?

Then you have the lady with the two year old talking about it while her kid is playing in the same street!

What is really crazy is how numb chicago is to stuff like this. The comments like at least they got hit in the legs are very indicative of the attitude in these neighborhoods. Finally, rahm's comments just make me laugh because this kind of violence is exactly what is expected in chicago and all of these politicians talking about guns won't arrest the gang bangers because drug money runs the city. And the people who live there are just nuts. They brag about this crap and totally embrace this culture of crime and violence. I feel bad for the kids and would like to beat the crap out of the parents who aren't even trying to break the cycle.

Sorry for the long post.

nrv216

[Rapier1772]

According to the FBI, Chicago was also the murder capitol of the the US for 2012.

It's the sort of thing we keep saying, when only criminals have guns they have nothing to fear. I guarantee if the people in that area were allowed to be armed, crime would drop and attitudes about it would change, but not over night.

Based on the speech, I am betting this is a low income area (how stereotypical of me). What they have to live with everyday is different than what some of us had the privilege of being raised in.
It's like a soldier in battle, eventually they become numb to the violence and it becomes a way of life. The children grow up thinking this kind of violence is normal and therefore they accept it, even become a part of it as they get older.
This will not get better for them until someone, more likely a group of someones, steps up and takes it back. Not just back from the criminals but also from the politicians who allowed them to become such victims in the first place.

[Rapier1772]

Judge rules Chicago ban on gun sales is unconstitutional
http://news.yahoo.com/judge-rules-chica ... nance.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

U.S. District Judge Edmond E. Chang found that the U.S. Constitution's protection of the right to keep and bear arms must include the right to acquire them, within limits.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel "strongly disagrees" with the court's decision, according to a statement from the city, adding that he has instructed the city's lawyer to consider all options to better regulate the sale of firearms within the city's borders.

"Every year Chicago police recover more illegal guns than officers in any city in the country, a factor of lax federal laws as well as lax laws in Illinois and surrounding states related to straw purchasing and the transfer of guns," the statement said. "We need stronger gun safety laws, not increased access to firearms within the city."

[kismetcapitan]

Maybe Chicago needs to work on their social problems that are creating the incentives to commit crime and violence in the first place, instead of blaming the weapons. Even if they successfully managed to eliminate all firearms from city limits, without changes to the social climate it just means people will get knifed. And eliminate knives and people will get sticked and stoned.

[panzermk2]

More people are already stabbed to death in Chicago then are shot.

[Rapier1772]

More people are already stabbed to death in Chicago then are shot.

Damnit Jay, why'd you have to say that?

Now Chicago is going to require stab proof knives like England has. :wall:

[jgreenberg01]

More people are already stabbed to death in Chicago then are shot.

Damnit Jay, why'd you have to say that?

Now Chicago is going to require stab proof knives like England has. :wall:

And butter knife registration. And no more than seven steak knives per household.

[Rapier1772]

http://news.yahoo.com/school-officials- ... 12095.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
School officials deeply troubled over GUN appearing ON SIGNS banning guns.

So now that Chicago land (supposedly) has concealed carry, state law requires schools to post small signs announcing that guns cannot be carried in schools. But here's the rub, the signs which ban guns have a picture of a gun on it. Oh no, we can't have that :skep:

Some school officials aren’t happy about the stickers because they contain a very basic image of a gun.
...
Nolan stressed that she is very concerned with “safety and security” and concerned that, somehow, someone could wrongly interpret an image of a gun emblazoned with the universal sign for prohibiting something.

And of course they try to bring the Sandy Hook shooting into it.

Seriously, they're afraid of a picture of a gun?
Someone needs to start a health movement for people in Chicago to take long walks (off short piers).

[grimmond]

Seriously, they're afraid of a picture of a gun?

That's because they have been watching to many shows/cartoons where items drawn come alive. :p

[joe_r95]

“It is not necessarily something you’d want on a school building,” said Paul Enderle, a superintendent in Oak Lawn. “But it correlates with the law, and I think if it ultimately helps to keep schools safe, that’s the objective.”

Exactly. We'll keep the schools safe from legally carrying adults with a 4x6" sticker. How could that not work?

[nrv216]

Seriously, they're afraid of a picture of a gun?

That's because they have been watching to many shows/cartoons where items drawn come alive. :p

Sorry, I couldn't help it. Terrifying, truly terrifying.

nrv216

[Rapier1772]

I would've gone with Cool World reference :laugh: