After the horrific wave of violence that plagued Southside Chicago on March 30, Mayor Rahm Emmanuel reacts to the incident and and condemns the “evil and depravity” that left a total of seven people dead since that morning.
“There is a level of evil and depravity about an individual [who] would shoot a pregnant woman,” the mayor said. “There is a level of evil and depravity of an individual who would walk into a restaurant and, in front of a mother, shoot her sons. Now, there are other people [who] I believe . . . opportunity and jobs will make a difference in their life. For the people who did what they did yesterday, they thought that was their job,” he tells the Chicago Sun-Times.
He spoke to reporters during a groundbreaking ceremony for a 12 story building in downtown Chicago.
The mayor added that there was only one place for the person(s) responsible for the string of murders in the South Shore neighborhood.
“They do not belong in our society. They do not belong in our city. And they do not belong on the streets in the communities and neighborhoods of the city of Chicago,” he said. “They belong behind bars.”
The wave of vicious murders began with the death of 26-year-old expecting mother, Patrice L. Calvin, who was found dead-at-the-scene in her apartment on the 7500 block of South Luella, according to police.
The Sun-Times also reports that following homicides occurred around 11 p.m., involving a 23-year-old woman and a 27-year-old man were passengers in a van heading south on South Shore Drive when the van was approached by a black Jeep. An unidentified person inside opened fire, hitting the man and the woman in her head. Both of them were deceased at the scene.
Later that day at 3:30 p.m., an unknown assailant entered a local restaurant 75th and Coles and shot and killed Emmanuel C. Stokes, 28, and Edwin Davis, 32. The eatery was near Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Paideia Academy, a Chicago Public School.
Dillon and Raheem Jackson, a father of a two-month-old boy reportedly ran from the restaurant as the two of them were shot in different parking lots away from the restaurant. All four of the victims were pronounced dead at the scene, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
Citizens are outraged of the incident and demand justice for all seven of the victims. The grandmother of Raheem Jackson expresses her deepest sorrow for the loss of her grandson.
“They were shooting at somebody, they say, inside the restaurant,” Georgia Jackson said. “My boys just got in the way, I guess.”
This would be the third grandchild she has lost to the ongoing gang violence in Chicago.
“I can’t keep doing this,” Georgia Jackson said. “I’m losing too many kids.”
Chicago PD believes that the incident could have been retaliation for another related incident as tweeted by spokesman Anthony Guglielmi. Police have yet to make any arrests and are still investigating the crimes.
According to local records by way of the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago has seen over and alarming 130 homicides through the first three months of 2017.
Source: chicago.suntimes.com
