(CHICAGO) Yolanda Scott used to flinch at the sound of gunfire.
“I’m not even afraid no more,” the 29-year-old, shaking with rage and frustration, told the Chicago Sun-Times. “That’s crazy. Who gets accustomed or adjusted to this?”
Scott might not be afraid for herself, but she lives in dread that something might happen to her 7-year-old daughter, Mariah — particularly after a bullet hit one of Mariah’s schoolmates Saturday night on a basketball court at Henderson Elementary School in West Englewood.
Twelve-year-old Kanari Gentry remained in critical condition after a stray bullet struck her while she was playing on the basketball courts.
About 25 minutes later, another girl — 11-year-old Takiya Holmes — was shot in the head about four miles to the east, in the 6500 block of South King Drive, also by what police believe was a stray bullet. She, too, was fighting for her life late Monday.
The timing and proximity of the shootings had the city on edge.
Scott was taking no chances, keeping Mariah away from school.
“Until this [calms] down, I really don’t want her to get too overwhelmed or confused,” Scott said.
Ald. Ray Lopez (15th), whose ward includes the school, was outside Henderson much of the day. On Monday morning, he told reporters that he’d spoken with Kanari’s family.
“They are trying their best to keep their hopes up. They are hoping for a miracle . . . and they are hoping Kanari can go home,” Lopez said.
Frustrated by the seemingly nonstop violence citywide, Lopez also said he wants “every single dollar” of the property-tax rebate money to be used to try to stop the city’s violence.
“This is an example of what we are dealing with: A block-by-block war that is going unchecked, uninterrupted, with 10-year-olds, 11-year-olds, 12-year-olds being gunned down in the process,” Lopez said.
On Monday night, Lopez joined about a dozen Chicago Police officers at a neighborhood “wake up” on the streets outside the school. With temperatures hovering in the low 40s on Monday, 14-year-old Justin Jones shot baskets on a hoop in the Henderson playground as CPD officers arranged chairs in the intersection of South Winchester and West 57th.
Justin, a lanky, 6-foot-tall eighth-grader, was two years ahead of Kanari at Henderson, and he said he and his classmates spent half the school day Monday working on signs and cards for her. On Monday evening, Justin had the basketball court largely to himself, and he wasn’t worried about stray bullets.
“This happens all the time in this neighborhood. My grandmother and I, we walk down the street and we can hear shots,” he said, cradling the ball under his arm. “I don’t believe in being in the wrong place at the wrong time. God knows what he’s doing. I think when it’s your time, it’s your time.”
Henderson Principal Marvis Jackson-Ivy spoke to the 70 or so neighborhood residents who turned out to hear the pleas for peace, and for someone to come forward with information on the shooters.
Henderson students spent Monday morning at an assembly to talk about the shooting with counselors or working on an enormous get-well card for their wounded classmate, the principal said. Last week, Kanari said told her classmates she wanted to become a judge, Jackson-Ivy said.
Someone knows who is behind the shooting, just as someone knows the victims and perpetrators of crimes across Englewood, the principal said.
“We need them to come forward, not just after” something happens, Jackson-Ivy said. “We need them to come forward and say, ‘My son needs help. He’s going to hurt somebody. There’s a gun in the house.’ ”
Takiya Holmes was sitting next to her 3-year-old brother in the back seat of a van — her mother and aunt were in the front seats — when gunfire erupted about 7:40 p.m. Saturday in the 6500 block of South King Drive in the Parkway Gardens neighborhood. Her mother, Nakeeia Williams, heard gunshots and told everyone in the car to get down.
Takiya’s mother was parked outside a dry cleaning store where she worked and had planned to exchange cars with a co-worker when someone fired shots.
Takiya was taken to Comer Children’s Hospital, where she was placed on life-support equipment and remained in critical condition.
