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Guard Recklessly Shoots CHA Youth

by  Assistant Editor

A mid sizzling weather on May 30, tempers were blazing between tenants of the Chicago Housing Authoritys LeClaire Courts complex and the developments security guards. A confrontation between residents and security guards left 12-year-old Marcus Finley shot and wounded.

According to dozens of witnesses to the incident, the security guard aimlessly fired his weapon into a crowd of people during a squabble with a few of the residents at the public housing site on the far Southwest Side.

According to residents, the shooting later resulted in several protests for the dismissal of the guard as well as for the security firm hired to serve and protect the residents and management.

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Stop The Violence

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The recent activities of a famously named young man have reminded me of the tough times of a bygone era. I was watching the tube when I saw a youth named Fred Hampton, Jr. interrupt a gun-control meeting being held by Mayor Richard M. Daley. Hampton asked Daley what was going to be done about the killing of 18-year-old Darryl Hamilton.

Community activist Fred Hampton Jr.

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Stop The Violence

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Sept. 5 started out in the usual way. At about 10:15 a.m., I started out of my apartment to go to get my mail. I saw a police truck pulling into the parking lot. A police truck usually means the cops came to a “load” – more people than they can put in the police cars. By the time I got downstairs, there were two police cars pulling up in the alley behind the playground. The cops were already at the gallery on the first floor and they were putting handcuffs on one of the women standing outside apartment 105.

All of a sudden, a second woman broke loose and started running. The police were right behind her. Some of her friends yelled for her to stop but she kept running. As soon as they passed Fairfield Street, six or seven cars sped down Fairfield. I believe this was to cut her off on California, the next street – only one half a block away. Read more »

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It’s Not OK to Corral at Cabrini

by  Assistant Editor

“Gun Smoke” doesn’t have anything on Cabrini-Green this summer. On June 13, gunslingers dueled in the streets and sheriffs tried to restore order in the North Side development.

On that day, two men were killed and one was left in critical condition. A 14-year-old girl suffered a grazing wound to her thigh. The two young men who were killed were not residents of Cabrini-Green, according to numerous residents who I interviewed. Read more »
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Harold Ickes News

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The violent death of 10-year-old Rita Haskins on May 3 was heart breaking, unconscionable and unnecessary. Rita was a sweet, loving, inquisitive, caring child, a daughter, a sister, a cousin, a student, a friend, a neighbor and a child of God.

She also was a beloved member of her community. As a matter of fact, at the moment of her untimely death, she was holding a smaller child on her hip, just like any loving mother would hold her own child. Read more »

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African-American Male Suicides

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There is a crisis in America and while African American leaders search for answers, some community groups are finding solutions of their own.

A recent study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and co-authored by University of Pennsylvania Professor Sean Joe found that suicides remain very high among the nation’s youth, specifically in African American communities, where there is a significant amount of violence associated with suicides.

“Seventy percent of African American youth who commit suicide do so with guns,” said Joe. The study co-authored by Joe “suggests that there is in fact a youth development crisis in the African American community.” Read more »

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Stop The Violence

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The month started with me covering the case of Jonathan Tolliver. The jurors had come to a deadlock on the first trial and I covered the retrial.

Tolliver was on trial for the death of Police Officer Michael Ceriale. Ceriale and his partner, Joseph Ferenzi, were staking out a Robert Taylor Homes building on an undercover drug sting Aug. 15, 1998 when Ceriale was shot and killed.

First there was a new set of jurors to be picked. This took two days. Two jurors asked to be excused, one because he said he had a history of mental problems. Read more »

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Stop the Violence

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The new year started a bit before midnight. The noise was deafening. The gunshots continued until 5 a.m. I heard single shots. I heard sounds that reminded me of cannons. I heard machine gun fire and that type of sound that Uzis make. I heard sounds that I had no idea what weapon, or weapons, made it. The boys in the ‘hood, my neighborhood, are well stocked with guns and rifles. The war could go on for a while.

On the South Side, in the Robert Taylor Homes, the bullets started to fly right after the holidays. This time, the parents themselves began to go to the school to pick their children up and escort them home. The Chicago Public Schools hired parents to start escorting kids to school and the CHA Tenant Patrols also are getting involved. Read more »

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Cabrini-Green: Changes and Relocation

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Each morning when they awake, the families remaining in 500 and 502 W.Oak St., two nineteen story high-rises in the Cabrini Green Public Housing Development, find themselves hanging in an uncertain balance between relocation and homelessness.

While some families have been relocated to other apartments in the development and others offered Section 8 Certificates, the remaining families – after numerous meetings with numerous people – are still unclear on what their fate will be. Read more »

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When Will It End?

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In the Bible, it states that the world will one day end in fire. With this prediction I concur. It will not be a forest fire, nor will it be a fire such as the one that Mrs. O’Leary’s cow started. Not even the fire that a bomb or any natural disaster can cause.

The fire of which I’m speaking of is GUN FIRE! So many of our young people are gone because of this fire. The average death in these past few years has not been from old age or any incurable disease. It is the simple destruction of our youth, our future in general.

I live in a low rent, high-rise public housing development. It’s bad enough to live there as it is without waking up to the sounds of shooting. Granted it’s not like this every day, which is marvelous. But when it starts, it seems to come without much warning. I do not stay in the house: I go outside, away from my development. It’s hard to go anywhere if they are shooting out there. Read more »

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