Tag: chicago shooting
Parolees Charged In Harvey Shooting, Hostage Standoff

Parolees Charged In Harvey Shooting, Hostage Standoff

By Peter Nickeas, Chicago Tribune

Two parolees in their 40s were charged in connection with the shooting of a Harvey, Ill., police officer earlier this week that led to a hostage standoff in the Chicago South Suburb.

David Jordan, of Dixmoor and Peter Williams, of Chicago, were each charged with attempted murder of a police officer, aggravated criminal sexual assault with a firearm, home invasion, and aggravated kidnapping.

Both are expected in bond court in Markham, Ill., at 9 a.m.

Police said the two are responsible “for the shooting of Harvey Police Officer Darnel Keel and the hostage standoff within the 147000 block of Seeley on Aug. 19.”

Jordan is a convicted murderer and armed robber, according to the Illinois Department of Corrections. He was sentenced to 47 years in prison in 1990 and also charged with possessing a weapon in prison. He served exactly half that amount of time, according to a IDOC spokesman.

Williams was convicted three times of being a felon in possession of a firearm, in addition to convictions for concealing a homicide, aggravated vehicular hijacking, lacking a firearm owner’s ID card, and defacing a firearm’s identifying markings, according to DOC records.

The two are accused of breaking into a house, shooting two police officers, and then taking six kids and two women hostage for 21 hours.

The ordeal started about 1 p.m. Tuesday in a house at 147th Street and Robey Avenue, where police responded to a call of a break-in.

The first arriving officers exchanged gunfire with people inside, according to police, and the two men inside took everyone else hostage.

Photo: David D’Agastino via Flickr

Interested in national news? Sign up for our daily email newsletter!

Chicago Boy, 9, Slain: ‘I’m Praying For The Whole City’

Chicago Boy, 9, Slain: ‘I’m Praying For The Whole City’

Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO — Antonio Smith liked to tease girls and show off his dance moves in front of his buddies. He loved playing football. Pretty much like any 9-year-old boy.

Wednesday afternoon, Antonio was found in the backyard of a house in the Grand Crossing neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side, shot in the chest, hands, and arms. He died an hour later.

“He just didn’t make it. He just didn’t make it,” said Antonio’s mother, Brandi Murry. “I’m praying for the whole city right now. I don’t want no other parent to ever go through this. I feel your pain. It’s bad and it hurts so much.”

She and other relatives couldn’t explain why anyone would want to gun down the boy, who was going to be a fourth-grader this fall.

“He liked to joke, he liked to play,” Murray said outside her home today. “I don’t understand why anybody would do this.”

“He was just a child, just a baby,” added a cousin, Kenya Eggleston. “Still had a whole life ahead of him. And why? Just a child. When is it going to stop?”

“I want whoever did this to turn himself in because he is an innocent baby,” said another cousin, Rasheda Eggleston. “He didn’t deserve it.”

No arrests had been reported Thursday morning, and no description of the gunman was released.

Antonio was shot around 4 p.m. Wednesday in the 1200 block of East 71st Street, a few blocks from where he had lived with his mother, older brother, and older sister, according to police and relatives. His body was found in a small backyard near train tracks, on a block lined with three-flats and single-story yellow brick ranch homes.

Police said a dispute between two factions of the Gangster Disciples gang has recently flared in the neighborhood, but they don’t believe Antonio had any gang ties and said he came from a good family that recently moved into the area.

Antonio’s mother said her son had begun pee wee football a few weeks ago in the afternoons.

“He was the type to make friends with everybody,” Murry said. “They all playing together. That was the type of kid he was.”

Antonio had appeared on a float in the annual Bud Billiken parade, an event that was marred this year by gunfire near the route.

He liked the rapper Chris Brown and loved to dance. “He always liked to give a show,” Murry said. “At dance contests, birthday parties, he loved to dance. I have video of him dancing in the house.”

Antonio had spent most of his days this summer either in his house, his stepfather’s house, or at his grandmother’s, Murry said.

On his free time she tried to make sure he read, Murry said. He was good at reading and, although “a little bit iffy” in math, he earned mostly As and Bs school. He was supposed to start the fourth grade at Hinton Elementary after Labor Day.

“I tried to keep him in something,” Murry said. “He had a good summer.

“I don’t think anybody can process losing a child,” she said.

Though he was new to the neighborhood, Antonio left an impression on 16-year-old Lanayiah Clayton. She frequently visits her aunt at the boy’s apartment complex and often spent time in a small park with Antonio and other neighbors to play sports and goof off. Antonio called her “my girlfriend.”

Marrieal Winchester, 13, last saw Antonio hours before he was killed. She bought him a sandwich, fruit cup, and milk from a lunch truck that often passes through the complex.

Her mother, Chrishawda Wilcox, remembered Antonio as “energetic” and “a little wild and crazy.” Antonio liked to dance in front of everyone to hip-hop beats, she said.

Wilcox got teary-eyed and flailed her arms in disgust when she learned the boy died. “I’m just going to put them in my prayers,” Wilcox said of Antonio’s family. “Everybody’s killing each other.”

She said gunshots are a familar sound around her complex in Grand Crossing.

Her daughter Marrieal pointed toward a playground at the edge of the park. It’s a short walk from her apartment but she stays away. “Too much shooting over here,” she explained.

Wilcox said Antonio’s death is a grim reminder of the dangers her five children face. “I can’t even grasp no words to tell you how I’d feel. … I’m gonna die,” she said. “I love (every) one of my kids. … This is a mother’s fear.”

Photo: David D’Agastino via Flickr

Interested in national news? Sign up for our daily email newsletter!

Police: Chicago Executive Kills Self After Wounding Firm’s CEO In Loop Shooting

Police: Chicago Executive Kills Self After Wounding Firm’s CEO In Loop Shooting

By Jeremy Gorner, Marwa Eltagouri and Meredith Rodriguez, Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO — An executive of a Loop company shot and killed himself after critically wounding the CEO of the firm in a dispute over a demotion, police said.

The shooting happened shortly before 10 a.m. in the offices of the ArrowStream company on the 17th floor of a building in downtown Chicago, police sources said.

One of the victims, a 59-year-old executive of the company, was dead on the scene with a gunshot wound to the head, the sources said, citing preliminary information.

The other man, the 54-year-old CEO of ArrowStream, was shot in the head and stomach and was taken in critical condition to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, according to police and fire officials.
Police described the incident as an attempted murder-suicide. “It’s a workplace violence issue,” Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said.

The company has been downsizing and has demoted a number of people. The shooter was demoted on Friday and asked for a one-on-one meeting with the CEO this morning. Around 9:55 a.m., there was a report of shots fired.

The CEO was shot in the head and stomach and is in “grave condition.” The shooter killed himself.

“Apparently he was despondent over the fact that he got demoted,” McCarthy said, adding that police were interviewing 10 witnesses.

McCarthy said there was “plenty of security in the building. He’s apparently a longtime employee. He comes in with a backpack like an employee normally does. . . This is a personal thing.”

A SWAT team arrived on the scene within minutes of the shooting but the building was not evacuated. Dozens of people stood and stared as police secured the building, taking photos. A helicopter hovered overhead.

Jay McKeon, 24, works at the building across the street as a commodity trader. He said he saw an older man wheeled out in a stretcher shortly after the shooting.

He also saw a paramedic cock his hand like a gun and point it at his head.

Ambaj Sharma used to work in the building and now works at the building next door.

He said he saw police cars, ambulances, and then a man pulled out on a stretcher. “It didn’t look good from up there,” he said.

He immediately texted and face-timed his brother who works on the 14th floor.

His brother said that, after the shooting, it was announced over the loud speakers that there was an armed intruder in the building and everyone was asked to stay on their floor.

“I think they felt they were safe because they were in a closed space on their own floor,” he said.

Neil Machchhar works on the 14th floor in the technology department of Advantage Futures. He said he didn’t hear any shots but received several texts and phone calls alerting him.

About five minutes later, he heard a voice on the loud speaker announcing an intruder and telling them to stay put.

“The person on the PA system sounded shaky too,” Machchhar said.

Everyone in his office on the 14th floor was concerned and wanted to know what was going on, he said. “Now that it’s resolved I feel fine,” he said.

Photo: Chicago Tribune/MCT/Nancy Stone

Interested in national news? Sign up for our daily email newsletter!