The 2021 NFL season could be when the respect finally comes back around to the ChicagoBears. Just two seasons ago, these Bears were looking like a Super Bowl contender. All they needed was the quarterback. The Bears only needed average quarterback play, and they would have been a contender back in 2018. But, as […]
Three people were shot since 5 p.m. May 28, 2021. | Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times file photo
A 12-year-old boy was with a group of people about 1 a.m. Saturday when someone inside a black Dodge Charger fired shots in the 7100 block of South Dobson Avenue.
Three people have been wounded in shootings across Chicago since Friday night, including a 12-year-old boy who was grazed by a bullet in Great Crossing on the South Side.
The boy was with a group of people about 1 a.m. Saturday when someone inside a black Dodge Charger fired shots in the 7100 block of South Dobson Avenue, Chicago police said.
A bullet grazed his leg and he was taken to Comer Children’s Hospital in good condition, police said. He may not have been the intended target, according to police.
Also Saturday, a 40-year-old man was wounded in a drive-by shooting in the Brighton Park neighbohood.
The man was standing outside just after midnight in the 3300 block of West 47th Street when a pick up truck drove by and a male from inside fired shots, police said.
He suffered two gunshot wounds to the back and was taken to Mount Sinai in good condition, police said.
The gunman is about 27 to 29 years old, according to police.
On Friday, a ride-share driver was grazed by a bullet during a struggle with a person who tried to rob him in Bronzeville.
About 6:55 p.m., the driver was in the 4000 block of South Wabash Avenue when a male got into the back seat of the car, pulled out a gun and demanded the 42-year-old get out of the vehicle, police said.
The two struggled over the gun, causing it to discharge, police said. The man was grazed in the abdomen and the attacker fled the scene.
The man was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center in good condition, police said.
It has been a tough stretch for St. Louis sports fans. Their baseball team in the St. Louis Cardinals lost a series 2-1 to both the Chicago White Sox and Chicago Cubs in the past week. Thier hockey team didn’t do much better either as the St. Louis Blues were swept out of the postseason […]
A 12-year-old boy was grazed by a bulled in a shooting early Saturday in Grand Crossing.
The boy was with a group of people about 1 a.m. in the 7100 block of South Dobson Avenue when someone inside a black Dodge Charger fired shots, Chicago police said.
A bullet grazed his leg and he was taken to Comer Children’s Hospital in good condition, police said.
He may not have been the intended target, according to police.
No one is in custody as Area One detectives investigate.
As police step up patrols in Chicago’s hot spots to contain violence this holiday weekend, community workers will fan out to some of the same places to draw people out of the line of fire.
“This is our city that we love, and there is loss of life, and it should make us weep and roll up our sleeves,” said John Fuder of Chicagoland United in Prayer, whose group is sponsoring prayer marches across the city this weekend.
The city has been relying more and more on violence prevention groups like Fuder’s in its strategy to reduce shootings. Their help is more crucial than ever.
Shootings are up 36% this year compared to the same period in 2020, according to Sun-Times data. Homicides are spiking in areas long afflicted with gun violence.
Dozens join 18th District Chicago police officers for a “faith walk” on the Near North Side, Friday evening, May 28, 2021. Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times
Eight neighborhoods have seen more homicides this year than at this time last year: South Shore, 9 last year and 12 this year; North Lawndale, 6 and 16; West Garfield Park, 11 and 13; Near West Side, 1 and 4; Grand Boulevard, 1 and 8; Austin, 17 and 23; Englewood, 8 and 17; East Garfield Park, 9 and 14.
Last year, the Lightfoot administration released a report titled “Our City Our Safety” that relied heavily on violence prevention groups in the community to connect with people caught in the cycle of violence.
“Gun violence is a reflection… of a lot of things — racial and economic injustice, high incarceration rates, high unemployment rates, poor neighborhoods and under-resourced schools,” said Jahmal Cole, founder of My Block, My Hood, My City. “If you have those five things, that’s the perfect conditions for gun violence.”
For the second year in a row, the nonprofit is funding dozens of events over the long weekend on the South and West sides, investing nearly $50,000 in community groups.
“I feel like the more positivity we put out in the streets this weekend, the more we can create ripples of hope,” Cole said. “I don’t expect to end 400 years of disinvestment with one weekend of giving out grants. But at the same time, I love seeing good stuff happening in the communities.”
Dozens join 18th District Chicago police officers for a “faith walk” on the Near North Side, Friday evening, May 28, 2021. Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times
This weekend, religious leaders in Chicago will lead prayer marches Saturday and Sunday along major economic corridors. “We feel the urgency that on our watch as faith leaders … we need to take this personally,” Fuder said.
There are also weekend-long “Hand’s Across Chicago” events held in coordination with the Chicago Police Department, with some officers leading prayers.
“Police (have) got to keep the peace … the church has to make the peace happen,” Fuder said.
Earlier this week, Chicago Police Supt. David Brown announced the department was canceling days off for the weekend and putting officers on 12-hour shifts.
“From a historical perspective, [it’s] better to prepare for the worst … than, you know, not be prepared,” Brown said. Last year, 10 people died and 39 others were wounded in shootings over the Memorial Day weekend, the deadliest since 2015.
Arne Duncan, founder of the CRED violence prevention group and former U.S secretary of education, told the Sun-Times he was “very concerned” about the months ahead and was implementing “an all-hands-on deck approach.”
Chicago CRED, CP4P, READI and other organizations have again partnered this year for the FLIP program — Flatlining Violence Inspires Peace — where people with influence in neighborhoods canvas hotspots and work to mediate conflict.
Dozens join 18th District Chicago police officers for a “faith walk” on the Near North Side, Friday evening, May 28, 2021.Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times
Duncan said they aim to have up to 400 Chicago CRED members working as extended outreach workers under the program this summer, targeting 77 hotspots across 12 neighborhoods.
“It’s so important for our city to understand that our men who are in these cycles of violence, they are also the solution… the only solution, to moving us out of these cycles of violence,” Duncan said. “We can’t arrest our way out of this.”
Steve Perkins, director of outreach at Metropolitan Family Services — which oversees CP4P — said their frontline FLIP workers do not work with Chicago police but have a “professional understanding.”
“We stay away from yellow tape or red tape … we understand that’s police business, and we also want that same level of respect when we’re in community and we’re working with community,” Perkins said. “We allow them to do their job, we do our job, and our methods may be a little different.”
Many of the programs by CP4P and Metropolitan Family Services had to shut down last summer due to the pandemic. This summer, Perkins said they aim to bring back large-scale events, through their Light in the Night program.
“We’re being deliberate and intentional … we’re trying to get in front of it,” Perkins said. “All of our outreach workers are on call.”
For many anti-violence workers, it has been that way since last summer.
“I’m not sitting by my phone to get a call from the mayor’s office to ask me, ‘What are we going to do this weekend to minimize the gun violence?'” READI senior director Eddie Bocanegra said. “Every weekend in Chicago since last year it’s been like a Memorial Day weekend.”
Last weekend, at least 12 people were killed and another 42 were wounded in Chicago, the deadliest weekend so far this year.
Nearly all of the violence happened in neighborhoods on the South and West sides identified by the city last fall as “priority community areas” where police and other resources were to be boosted.
According to “Our City, Our Safety,” 15 community areas have accounted for more than 50 percent of all shootings over the last three years.
“We’re anticipating the worst (this holiday),” Bocanegra said. “But the worst … it’s been like that for over a year already, every weekend.”
This undated photo provided by the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office shows approximately 22,000 thousand rounds of ammunitions found at the residence of Samuel Cassidy, the suspect in the Wednesday May 26, 2021 shooting at a San Jose rail station. Cassidy the shooter who killed 9 at California rail yard had 12 guns, 22,000 rounds of ammunition at house he set on fire. | AP
Investigators found 12 guns, multiple cans of gasoline and suspected Molotov cocktails at Samuel James Cassidy’s house, the Santa Clara County sheriff’s office said in a news release.
SAN JOSE, Calif. — The gunman who killed nine of his co-workers at a California rail yard had stockpiled weapons and 25,000 rounds of ammunition at his house before setting it on fire to coincide with the bloodshed at the workplace he seethed about for years, authorities said Friday.
Investigators found 12 guns, multiple cans of gasoline and suspected Molotov cocktails at Samuel James Cassidy’s house, the Santa Clara County sheriff’s office said in a news release.
The cache at the home the 57-year-old torched with a slow-burn device was on top of the three 9 mm handguns he brought Wednesday to the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority in San Jose, authorities said. He also had 32 high-capacity magazines, some with 12 rounds, and fired 39 shots.
The guns he used to kill his co-workers appear to be legal, officials said. They have not said how he obtained them. Officials did not specify what type of guns they found at his home.
The house was so cluttered with flammable materials that it slowed the investigation, San Jose police Officer Steve Aponte said. Crews finished combing through it Friday to make sure it was safe before opening the cul-de-sac back to neighbors. A suspicious package that investigators found in the attic turned out to be harmless inert batteries and wiring, he said.
Cassidy killed himself as sheriff’s deputies rushed into the transit rail yard in the heart of Silicon Valley, where he shot and killed nine men ranging in age from 29 to 63.
What set off Cassidy was still being investigated, Aponte said.
While witnesses and Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith have said Cassidy appeared to target certain people, the sheriff’s office said Friday that “it is clear that this was a planned event and the suspect was prepared to use his firearms to take as many lives as he possibly could.”
Taptejdeep Singh, the 36-year-old father of a 3-year-old son and a 1-year-old daughter, was on an early shift as a light rail operator when the shooting began. He called another transit employee to warn him, saying he needed to get out or hide.
“From what I’ve heard, he spent the last moments of his life making sure that others — in the building and elsewhere — would be able to stay safe,” co-worker Sukhvir Singh, who is not related to Taptejdeep Singh, said in a statement.
Singh’s brother-in-law, P.J. Bath, said he was told Singh was killed after encountering the gunman in a stairwell.
“He just happened to be in the way, I guess,” Bath said.
Kirk Bertolet, 64, was just starting his shift when shots rang out, then he heard the screams. He and his co-workers threw a table in front of their door, and Bertolet called the control center.
Then there was silence.
Cautiously, Bertolet left the barricaded office, hoping he could offer first aid. He couldn’t. He saw some of his co-workers take their last breaths.
Bertolet, a signal maintenance worker who worked in a separate unit from Cassidy, said he is convinced Cassidy targeted his victims, because he didn’t hurt some people he encountered.
“He was pissed off at certain people. He was angry, and he took his vengeance out on very specific people. He shot people. He let others live,” he said.
Glenn Hendricks, chairman of the transit authority’s board of directors, said he had no information about any tensions between Cassidy and the co-workers he shot.
Video footage showed Cassidy calmly walking from one building to another with a duffel bag filled with guns and ammunition to complete the slaughter, authorities said.
Cassidy’s ex-wife said he had talked about killing people at work more than a decade ago. Cecilia Nelms told The Associated Press that he used to come home from work resentful and angry over what he perceived as unfair assignments.
He also spoke of hating his workplace when customs officers detained him after a 2016 trip to the Philippines, a Biden administration official told the AP.
A Department of Homeland Security memo said Cassidy also had notes on how he hated the Valley Transportation Authority, according to the official. The official saw the memo and detailed its contents to the AP but was not authorized to speak publicly about the ongoing investigation.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the memo.
It doesn’t say why he was stopped by customs officers. It said he had books about “terrorism and fear and manifestos” but when he was asked whether he had issues with people at work, he said no. The memo notes that Cassidy had a “minor criminal history,” citing a 1983 arrest in San Jose and charges of “misdemeanor obstruction/resisting a peace officer.”
San Jose police said in a statement through Mayor Sam Liccardo’s office that they sought an FBI history on Cassidy and found no record of federal arrests or convictions.
“Whatever this detention at the border was, it did not result in an arrest that showed up on his FBI criminal history, and it was not reported to SJPD,” the statement said.
Neighbors, acquaintances and an ex-girlfriend described him as a loner, unfriendly and prone at times to fits of anger.
Cassidy was hired in 2001, according to the transit authority. Bertolet said Cassidy worked regularly with the victims but he always seemed to be an outsider and perhaps couldn’t take the rough humor of colleagues.
“He was never in the group. He was never accepted by anybody there. He was always that guy that was never partaking in anything that the people were doing,” Bertolet said.
A felon on parole has been charged with murdering a paralyzed pot dealer after investigators were able to connect his DNA to a blood trail he left when fleeing the victim’s Chatham apartment building.
Printiss Jones, 25, was found shot in the head and arm at 7 p.m. on Jan. 4 by Chicago police officers responding to a call of gunfire at Jones’ apartment in the 7800 block of South Indiana Avenue.
Six minutes later, after receiving another call of a person wounded, officers found Andrew McCullum shot in the hand about a half-mile away at 76th Street and Yale Avenue, Assistant Cook County State’s Attorney James Murphy said Friday.
McCullum, 26, initially said he was shot where police found him, but later said he was wounded near 76th Street and Lafayette Avenue, Murphy said.
There were no reports of shots fired at either location McCullum gave that night, according to police.
McCullum did leave a blood trail by and near Jones’ apartment, Murphy said.
McCullum was treated and released at an area hospital that night. Jones died a short time later.
Andrew McCullumChicago police
McCullum and an accomplice had allegedly gone to Jones’ apartment for the sale of a gun, although prosecutors did not make it clear who the intended buyer and seller were.
Jones, who could not use his legs due to paralysis, sold marijuana from his apartment and kept a gun for his protection, Murphy said.
When McCullum and his accomplice arrived, Jones was sitting on an air mattress on the floor, hanging out with his brother and girlfriend, Murphy said.
After Jones’ girlfriend went into the kitchen for a glass of water and returned, she allegedly saw McCullum on top of Jones and McCullum’s cohort searching behind the air mattress.
Then shots rang out. Jones’ girlfriend hid behind the refrigerator, and McCullum and the other man fled from the building, Murphy said.
Outside, McCullum, who had taken Jones’ gun, fired several shots at Jones’ brother, who was standing in an alley behind the building with someone else, Murphy said.
A Chicago police ShotSpotter recorded McCullum and his accomplice running from the scene with guns in their hands, Murphy said.
McCullum was taken into custody Wednesday after investigators found McCullum’s DNA matched the trail of blood in Jones’ building, Murphy said.
Jones’ brother and girlfriend identified McCullum’s cohort in a photo array, but he has not yet been charged, prosecutors said.
McCullum was sentenced to 18 years in prison in 2010 for armed robbery and released on parole in 2019, state records show.
He is expecting his first child and has been doing custodial work at a salon, an assistant public defender told Judge Susana Ortiz.
Ortiz ordered McCullum held on $750,000 bail Friday.
If he is able to post bond, the judge recommended McCullum be placed on electronic monitoring.
A 43-year-old man has been charged with gunning down a romantic rival in West Town.
Kevin Gentry killed 24-year-old Courtney Macon on April 3 shortly after he saw Macon with his former girlfriend, Assistant Cook County State’s Attorney James Murphy said.
Macon fathered two children with the woman and had an on-and-off relationship with her, Murphy said.
On the night of the shooting, Macon and the woman went to her cousin’s house to pick up food and saw Gentry, who had dated the woman “many years ago,” standing outside, Murphy said.
The two men “did not get along due to their mutual affection” for the woman and had previously gotten into arguments about Macon’s relationship with her, Murphy said. The two men allegedly exchanged words that night as well.
Macon and the woman were walking up to her uncle’s nearby house a short time later when the woman heard a gunshot and saw Macon running down the street, Murphy said. The woman turned around and allegedly saw Gentry holding a gun about 10 feet away before he also ran away.
:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22547139/merlin_97937840.jpg)
:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22547143/merlin_97937842.jpg)
:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22547145/merlin_97937828.jpg)
:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22545511/Andrew_McCullum__26.jpg)
:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22546895/Kevin_Gentry__43.jpg)