Chicago police investigate mass shootings, including one in area already identified for more resources – Chicago Tribune

Chicago police were faced with a trio of shootings with multiple victims Tuesday — with 13 people shot in all — two in a beat police have targeted for an inflow of resources as summer approaches and one just outside another of those beats.

The shooting of five teenagers Tuesday afternoon in the Back of the Yards neighborhood was the result of retaliatory gang violence that has been occurring since the killing of a high-ranking gang member’s brother in April, Superintendent David Brown said at a news conference Wednesday morning. One teenager was killed in that shooting.

But the man Brown named was not charged or even named as a suspect in the shootings, making Brown’s decision to blame him alone and name him highly unusual.

At the news conference, Brown said “some of the prescriptions” to deal with the violence involve a social-services support system that has focused on 55 police beats that the department identified as accounting for half the city’s violence in recent years. Brown announced the decision to prioritize those beats at a news conference last month. Since then, Brown has said that they’re seeing “dramatic declines” in violence in those areas.

The Back of the Yards shooting Tuesday did not fall in one of the targeted beats.

But another eight people were shot on the grounds of Jackson Park Tuesday night in two shootings about an hour apart, both south of the Jackson Park Lagoon, according to Chicago police. Those shootings were in an area designated for more attention.

Craig Chico with the Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council said Tuesday’s shooting felt like a “gut punch.”

“We think we’re making headway, we think we’re getting somewhere, we’re providing more education, we’re providing more safe spaces,” Chico said. “And then it takes one violent, ridiculously dumb incident like this and we’ve got to take a few steps back and start rebuilding again.”

The council’s programs and resources target youth on the fringe of becoming gang involved, but they’re not successful in getting “third generation” gang members into their program, he said, adding that more resources won’t change that.

“You could have provided a billion dollars more resources,” he said. “The guy that did the shooting yesterday is not partaking in those programs.”

Chico said neighborhood residents now also have to deal with and push back on the perception of what their community is like. The gang activity is not representative of the community as a whole, he said.

“This is a really entrenched gang situation we’ve got. The infrastructure is generational,” he said. “So that’s part of the difficulty in dismantling it.”

But the neighborhood is also filled with caring parents who walk their children to and from school and who are now more concerned for their family’s safety, Chico said.

In the Back of the Yards shooting, officers responded to reports of a shooting in the 4800 block of South Ada at about 4:30 p.m., Brown said. One of the teenagers, a 19-year-old, was shot in the head and left side of his body and died at the scene.

Brown said the shooting occurred when gang members in a car saw rivals on the block and they immediately began exchanging gunfire. Police later recovered two rifles from the scene.

Police said the shooting can be linked to the April 19 murder of a man who was the brother of a high-ranking member of one of the gangs involved, Brown said. Since that killing, violence has been escalating between the two gangs.

Brown went on to say that the high-ranking gang member, who is 28 years old, was arrested by Chicago police on March 27 for possession of a firearm by a felon.

The man told police at the time, “I have it for my protection,” according to a police report. He later added that he bought the firearm to protect his family because people were shooting at him. A month later, his brother was shot and killed.

The man was previously convicted in November 2017 on charges of aggravated discharge of a firearm, aggravated assault and aggravated assault of a police officer, according to records. He was sentenced to eight years in prison and records indicate he was released from prison over a year ago.

Brown named the man at the news conference, but the Tribune is not naming him because he was not arrested or charged in connection to Tuesday’s shooting.

To be sure, Brown’s decision to name a potential target in a gang conflict is unusual. Some neighborhood sources interviewed by the Tribune immediately called the decision troubling and suggested the identification could put a target on the back of the man Brown named.

Police did not immediately comment on Brown’s decision to identify the man.

In a phone interview, Ald. Jeanette Taylor, 20th, whose ward covers Back of the Yards, said her primary goal in the aftermath of crime and violence is to listen to and support the people who need help.

“The way to go is to make sure the community has resources like other communities because you notice this doesn’t really happen in other neighborhoods, like Lincoln Park,” Taylor said. “You give the people the community resources that they need, like job opportunities and programming for young people. When we start investing in these communities, we won’t see this amount of violence.”

Taylor said people tend to fixate on “those gang members” responsible for acts of violence but don’t think about what circumstances led to someone becoming a part of a gang. She said it’s important to look at situations, like acts of gun violence, from the ground level to get a better understanding of the story and not just forming opinions and strategies based on half of the information.

“We’re so busy implementing, we’re not asking,” Taylor said. “We need a city that asks, that has the conversation. The people in the community have the answer. We just have to be open to listening.”

Ald. Leslie Hairston, 5th, said on Wednesday afternoon she went with police to the sites where both shootings in Jackson Park took place.

She said she wanted to be there to work with the city and community and figure out ways to make the park safer.

“We are not going to police ourselves out of this,” she said.

She added that Jackson Park regularly has an increased police presence during warmer months anyway to handle larger crowds.

On Wednesday afternoon at the scene where the Back of the Yards shooting took place, people walked their children home from school. Others walked up the street from the corner store, snacks in hand. They walked past two tall candles with roses between them in the grass.

Nearby, a woman jogged by alongside a little girl on a tricycle. We have to get inside soon, she told the child.

A neighbor, Maria Garcia, said she has lived in the Back of the Yards neighborhood for 27 years. About two years ago, she and her husband bought a house near where Tuesday’s shooting happened.

Garcia said she didn’t know there was so much violence near her new home. She heard the gunshots. They didn’t leave the house after that, she said.

“I’m not comfortable. You should’ve seen how yesterday how bad it was out here,” she said. “I was so nervous. And my husband went outside in the afternoon and I told him ‘Come inside.’ I’m scared of him going outside.”

Garcia and her husband are considering moving again.