Mayor Daley fails at stopping Gang Violence

Chicago Shooting Scene.jpg
Mayor Daley’s press machine works well at spinning a terrible lie. Chicago Clout warned you about the impending disaster in Chicago’s Streets. How come we knew the Chicago Gangs are at war and Mayor Daley did not? It seems the only thing that Chicago cares about is the “Emerald Belt”. The “Emerald Belt” is a section of Chicago where the elite live. Daley wants to make sure everything is nice and wonderful for these Chicago residents. If you drive to the west and south sides of Chicago, you will find a vacuum that is sucking the life out of the neighborhoods. The Daley spin machine wants you to believe the cause of gang warfare is because of the warm weather. I was amazed to hear from several news sources propagate the false lies as if the gangs start shooting because of the weather. The reason Chicago’s poor neighborhoods are on fire is because the kids have no place to work. The only way for Mayor Daley’s poor residents to make money is to deal drugs. All of the industry has been removed from the west side due to high costs and politicians selling out. This picture was taken at 21st Street and California in Chicago. Some kids were shot and killed over turf wars. In the old days, kids would have a chance to make some money at the Park District or hustle a buck or two at a small store. Mayor Daley needs to reach out to former gang leaders like Wallace “Gator” Bradley and Harold “Noonie” Ward to get the insight needed to rein in the violence. Daley will instead go to the Preachers that also remove opportunity from the poor and cash in on providing votes for Daley backed candidates. Note the bullet holes in the house. All city workers should pack heat Mayor Daley, you ruined the west side. It is time to reach out to gang leadership in jail, they will bring piece back to the streets. Photo by Patrick McDonough

14 Replies to “Mayor Daley fails at stopping Gang Violence”

  1. Jody Weis broke the law starting his job in Chicago. you need to be an actual resident to apply for a job. Jody was a resident of Pittsburgh. This is bullshit.

  2. I wasn’t invited to today’s City powwow on crime. But here are some suggestions.

    Don’t spend Chicago Park District money on building special interest projects (Children’s Museum/Latin School soccer park) use the money for STAFF to run programs teens WANT.

    Teach real sex ed in school and make getting birth control real easy so more kids aren’t born to people who can not care for them.

    Get some big time Chicago male athletes to promote use of condoms so there are fewer teenagers fathering tots they will not assume responsibility for.

    Decriminalize drugs ( the economy could use a new industry) so fewer young people have police records.

    Shift the high school day so it starts later and ends at 5pm so the kids get home when any working parent stands a chance of also being at home. Teenagers like to sleep in any way so there is probably less likelihood of shootings between 8am and 10:30am when the new school day would start.

    Make every cultural institution free to teenagers at all times. So after school they could go to the Shedd, Adler, MSI etc.

    Also teenagers should ride the CTA FREE so they can get out and see the city.

    Then we should have a sister-ward system and pair up the “have” wards (with universities, cultural institutions, businesses etc.) with the don’t-haves to create dialogue and sharing of resources.

    And spend the Chicago 2016 money on building facilities so by 2016 young Chicagoans might be able to compete in the Olympics where ever they are held and not spend the money making builders rich by 2016!

  3. Shooting and major crimes have been going on in these areas for years and yes the warm weather is a big contibuter to the surge of crime that has been going on recently. The job factor has nothing to do with this, criminals are criminals and this is what they do. As far as the news media goes is another story in itself, these neighborhoods have been plagued with crime and shootings forever, the reason your only now really seeing the truth about how chicago is so un-safe is that the mayor has an agenda. I believe he is allowing the press secretary to leak otherwise hush hush info to the media, in hopes of trying to push off his bs gun contol bills. just my opinion

  4. Not just ‘substances/drugs’, Mack, but all three of the traditional ‘Vices’, namely Gambling, Prostitution and ‘Recreational Substances’, should be legalized, regulated and taxed.

    The use of Zoning will do more to remove these vices, and those who choose to exercise their freedoms to indulge in same, from the residential communities they are now infesting.

    Establish ‘Vice Zones’, much like Industrial, Manufacturing and Commercial Zoning, encourage the investments that Las Vegas has enjoyed, impose taxes and fees to cover the extra costs likely for law enforcement, fire protection and medical services, require each and every business to have it’s own, private security and first aid, plus the obvious liability insurances, create many new jobs heretofore not existing legally, and we’ll all enjoy a reduction in our property and sales taxes beyond our wildest dreams.

    There are many large pieces of property scattered throughout this city and county that would be suitable for these types of businesses. The south side alone is starving for jobs and the tax revenues that all those empty lots and abandoned buildings fail to produce.

    Removing the money that the illegality of the three vices creates, said illegality artificially inflating the price of these consumer demanded goods and services, will do more to impede the criminal gangs from having the resources they use as a primary means and motive for their violent actions.

    While there will still be some who choose to try to ‘sell their wares’ within the residential neighborhoods not zoned for vices, there will be little demand for their goods and services, since the same or better can be had legally within the ‘Vice Zones’.

    If the reason for there being laws against the three vices is to protect society from the negative effects of same, what better way than to isolate and segregate the providers and the consumers, via ‘Vice Zoned’ businesses?

    Those whose ‘religious’ or ‘moral’ sensibilities inspire an objection to this idea can feel free not to indulge in same, not to associate or do business with those who they believe do indulge in same and not to employ those who indulge in same.

    Social and economic pressures are both more effective than legal pressures, as our history has proven time and time again.

    Temptation is a creation of God, trying to criminalize it, to discourage it’s indulgence, is the folly of man.

    As for education and it’s faults and failings, that’s an interesting and substantial conversation that may occur here, if the owner of this blog permits it.

  5. where is your plan mayor daley to re-build hearts?

    Where is your mayor Daley to re-build the lives of those impoverished on the south side. You pay a CEO $40 million dollars to bring the Olympics to Chicago and you push hard and heavy to re-build the Ohare airport and also Millennium park. But not a single solitary effort to re-build and shape the lives of those who are most vulnerable. Don’t you dare say you can’t do it or it can’t be done. Bill Wilson has been dead for 37 years and the organization he built called alcoholics anonymous is still helping millions of people get clean and go back to care for their families. I will tell you why there is not a word from you, you don’t care. You have a systematic policy of evicting all the black people from the city of Chicago. Your policies are to raise the costs of living in the city and systematically throwing away poor peoples lives! Well karma is yours Mr. mayor Daley. Changes are needed and the people must now wake up and change their leadership. Crooks always get caught sir. And it is now clear that it’s your turn. The feds are will be your legacy sir.

  6. So DaMare has a summit on violence and here is the result as reported in the Sun Times:

    Daley on firearms-

    No guns for the citizens and assault weapons for the police. He may just get me to join the NRA just to balance out the police state he and his gang have in mind for us.

    (Imagine what a drunk cop could do in just one incident in a bar. Makes beating up a little bartender seem tame.)

    Daley is a fascist! And a racist as he does seem to be moving out the people of colors other than white. And lower income white folks are having difficulty staying here too. So maybe he is just an economic elitist.

    I hope Daley gets indicted.

    (Response) I think Daley’s kid Patrick Daley was involved with gang activity as a young man. He took a bat to some young oriental kid’s head. Training to be a Chicago Mayor some day, right?

  7. (Response) I think Daley’s kid Patrick Daley was involved with gang activity as a young man. He took a bat to some young oriental kid’s head. Training to be a Chicago Mayor some day, right?

    Hey pat dont forget the SHOTGUN incident in michigan

  8. The mafia runs City Hall and the gangs run everything else. Thanks Patrick McDonough for leading Chicago City Workers out of the morass.

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  10. All three of the traditional ‘Vices’, namely Gambling, Prostitution and ‘Recreational Substances’, should be legalized, regulated and taxed.

    The use of Zoning will do more to remove these vices, and those who choose to exercise their freedoms to indulge in same, from the residential communities they are now infesting.

    Establish ‘Vice Zones’, much like Industrial, Manufacturing and Commercial Zoning, encourage the investments that Las Vegas has enjoyed, impose taxes and fees to cover the extra costs likely for law enforcement, fire protection and medical services, require each and every business to have it’s own, private security and first aid, plus the obvious liability insurances, create many new jobs heretofore not existing legally, and we’ll all enjoy a reduction in our property and sales taxes beyond our wildest dreams.

    There are many large pieces of property scattered throughout this city and county that would be suitable for these types of businesses. The south side alone is starving for jobs and the tax revenues that all those empty lots and abandoned buildings fail to produce.

    Since it doesn’t appear likely that our loyal and patriotic corporations or governments are interested in developing these areas with manufacturing, housing or other commercial facilities, thus providing employment, income and tax revenues from same, (for the benefit of the citizens), the logical solution to many of the west and south side’s problems is both to provide employment opportunities and remove the primary motives and financial incentives that are the result of the illegality of the three vices.

    Removing the money that the illegality of the three vices creates, (said illegality artificially inflating the price of these consumer demanded goods and services), will do more to impede the criminal gangs from having the resources they use as a primary means and motive for their violent actions.

    While there will still be some who choose to try to ‘sell their wares’ within the residential neighborhoods not zoned for vices, there will be little demand for their goods and services, since the same or better can be had legally, and far more safely, within the ‘Vice Zones’.

    If the reason for there being laws against the three vices is to protect society from the negative effects of same, what better way than to isolate and segregate the providers and the consumers, via ‘Vice Zoned’ businesses?

    Those whose ‘religious’ or ‘moral’ sensibilities inspire an objection to this idea can feel free not to indulge in same, not to associate or do business with those who they believe do indulge in same and not to employ those who indulge in same.

    Social and economic pressures are both more effective than legal pressures, as our history has proven time and time again.

    Temptation is a creation of God, trying to criminalize it, to discourage it’s indulgence, is the folly of man.

  11. Folks and People Nations (Strategy for Peace)

    To: Community Leaders, Religious Leaders, Business Leaders, Law Enforcement Leaders, and Political Leaders

    In the name of God whom some call Yahweh, Jesus, Allah, Osiris, Jehovah, Khrishna or the Great Architect of the Universe. Our Mission is one of “PEACE” and the end of Senseless Violence, Murder, Recidivism, Destruction of Neighborhoods and Communities. The Folks and People Nations (Strategy for Peace) is a “Public Multi-cultural, Multi-ethnic, Multi-racial, and Multi-lateral Peace Initiative” for Gang Members and Ex-offenders who desire to change their negative ways by joining our Positive Movement.

    We plan on meeting with Community Leaders, Religious Leaders, Business Leaders, Law Enforcement Leaders, and Political Leaders as it relates to developing a City and State-wide Database for Gang Members and Ex-offenders who are Registered with the Folks and People Nations (Strategy for Peace). We also plan on meeting with the above Leaders on a Bi-weekly basis to ensure that “PEACE” prevails in all Neighborhoods, Communities, Wards, and Districts.

    Members of the Folks and People Nations (Strategy for Peace) will sign a “Peace Contract” with the City and State. Our goals are to change the negative effects Gang Banging, Drug Dealing, and Criminal Activity has on Citizens, Neighborhoods and Communities. Below is our Plan of Action:

    (1) Eliminate Crime and Violence.
    (2) Register Gang Members and Ex-offenders with our “Public Initiative”.
    (3) Collect Monthly Dues (30,000 Members x $10 Monthly Dues= $300,000.00 Monthly) before Taxes are deducted.
    (4) Own and Operate Businesses (Construction Companies, Restaurants, Modeling Agencies, Cleaning Services, Security Guard Companies, Art Galleries, etc).
    (5) Support Charitable Organizations (Salvation Army, Catholic Charities, etc).
    (6) Support Local and National Political Campaigns (Democrat, Republican, Green Party, etc).
    (7) Abide by all (City, County, Federal, and State) Laws, Rules and Regulations.

    The Folks and People Nations (Strategy for Peace) will be the Greatest “Public Initiative” in Illinois for Gang Members and Ex-offenders by reducing the Rates of Gang Members and Ex-offenders who are caught in the Revolving Doors of Recidivism. Above all, many thanks to Congressmen Danny Davis (Second Chance Act for Ex-offenders) and Mayor Richard M. Daley (Executive Order for Ex-offenders).

  12. This sounds awfully like a grant proposal, all style and no substance.

    Is this the product of those ‘CeaseFire’ scam artists?

    And does this apply to the criminals currently running this city and county, you know, the ones holding elected offices hostage?

  13. Sun-Times Special Report: Angel’s last days
    ‘He liked his beer. He liked his music and he liked a good time.’

    May 18, 2008Recommend (33)

    BY MARK J. KONKOL, ANNIE SWEENEY, MAUDLYNE IHEJIRIKA AND FRANK MAIN Staff Reporters

    Angel Ramirez had Friday off, so he enjoyed a late sleep.

    » Click to enlarge image

    Angel Ramirez’s brothers, Roberto (left) and Gonzalo, visit the scene of the shooting. Angel was sitting on the stoop when he was gunned down.
    (John H. White/Sun-Times)

    » Click to enlarge image

    Felipa Ramirez said she could always count on her son, Angel (inset). “When I ask him what I need,” she said, “he never says no — no matter what.”
    (Brian Jackson/Sun-Times)

    RELATED STORIES
    59 Hours: An interactive look at Angel’s life

    Stop the Killing: A Sun-Times Editorial

    Editorial: We can’t turn our backs

    Note:
    The Chicago Sun-Times counted 40 shooting victims from several sources, including preliminary reports made throughout the weekend to the Chicago Police Department and information reported over that weekend by the newspaper’s wire service. The Chicago Police Department counted a total of 36 shootings for the weekend, but no list of addresses was made available for this report. At 10 o’clock, his mother called to make sure he was up in time to take his grandfather to the doctor as he promised. Angel jumped in the shower, had a bite for breakfast and by noon was on the way to Stroger Hospital with his grandfather in tow.

    It was already a beautiful day — clear skies and bright sun that warmed the air enough to pull tulips from their beds and neighbors out on front stoops.

    TV weathermen predicted Friday would be the start of a glorious weekend — perfect for throwing open upstairs windows and barbecuing in the backyard.

    Angry people with scores to settle, though, had other ideas. The flurry of bullets they unleashed during a deadly 59 hours, from 12:50 p.m. on April 18 to 11:25 p.m. on April 20, sent beat cops scurrying to a blur of calls of “shots fired.”

    In all, 40 people were shot. Seven died. Seven children were shot, five of them out after curfew. And by Monday, a national media spotlight focused on the blood spilled in the streets of Chicago.

    Street violence usually spikes when the weather warms, so maybe we should have expected it, but nobody saw this coming. Definitely not Angel, a 26-year old muffler shop manager who still lived with family in his boyhood home.

    This is the story of those three violent days, how they stole lives and made neighbors tremble while Angel went about his last weekend.

    ‘He was always happy’
    They called him “Buttercup.”

    A burly guy with a thin goatee, chubby cheeks and a gentle manner, Angel Ramirez was still the first guy off his stool if a buddy got in a scuffle. He grew up in Little Village — Southwest Side gang turf that doesn’t breed pushovers.

    Angel never got mixed up with the street punks who hang on the corners near his family’s yellow brick A-frame on 23rd Place. But he couldn’t avoid their violence. Nobody could.

    Angel was a teenager when a stray bullet blasted through his family’s living room window as he watched TV, sending him to the floor for cover. When he was a high school senior, two men ambushed him while he delivered auto parts, shooting into his car from both directions. Bullets pierced his right arm and lower back. He drove himself to the hospital, and never really talked much about that day again.

    When money got tight, Angel begged his mother to keep him enrolled at De La Salle Institute, a Catholic high school, because the public schools were thick with feuding gang-bangers. If the family couldn’t afford the tuition, Angel understood. But he told his mother he wouldn’t study anymore. What would be the point?

    Mom commuted to an office job in Skokie. Dad manned a lunch truck. Between them, and with financial help from the school, they kept Angel at De La Salle — Mayor Daley’s alma mater — and he graduated in 2000. He went on to technical college, but dropped out to manage Diaz Mufflers, owned by a neighborhood family that treated him like a son.

    At the muffler shop, Angel and his wide grin won over just about everybody, from working men in rusty vans to young men driving cars on 22-inch rims, and even two beat cops who became his pals. Angel made his own schedule and worked for the weekend.

    “He was always happy, always laughing,’’ said his friend, Jon Medina, a Chicago Police officer who patrols the neighborhood. “He didn’t judge. He liked his beer. He liked his music and he liked a good time.’’

    On his days away from the shop, Angel spent much of his time with his two younger brothers and his best friend, Temo Perez. When Temo worked late at his family’s supermercado on Kedzie, Angel often stopped by to help him close up and put down a few beers.

    Friday, April 18, was no different.

    Murder No. 1
    Earlier that week, Angel’s grandfather had fainted after his blood sugar dropped dangerously low. Angel had agreed to take his abuelo for a checkup on Friday. They left the house at about noon for a 1:30 appointment. Anybody who goes to Stroger Hospital knows it’s best to be an hour early if you don’t want to get stuck there all day.

    While they sat in the waiting room, the weekend’s coming gun violence first sparked in Marquette Park. Two people were wounded at 12:50 p.m.

    At 3:20 p.m., a 15-year old girl was shot and wounded in South Chicago.

    At 5:40, a 19-year-old was shot and wounded, again in Marquette Park.

    Officer Medina and his partner, Gustavo Torres Jr., happened to see Angel back in Little Village at around 6 o’clock driving a white van — one of many cars Angel would “test drive” around town after the shop closed. They waved at each other.

    Medina and Torres had a lot in common with Angel. They were all Mexican Americans with deep ties to family, some still south of the border. Their parents had all sent them to Catholic schools and had high expectations. Over the years, Angel and Medina had become good friends who shared each other’s big moments — weddings, baptisms and a funeral.

    On that Friday, a rare early morning earthquake jiggled the city. The Cubs beat the Pirates. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra played an afternoon concert.

    And that evening, while Angel relaxed at home with his family, the shootings rattled on.

    At 6:30 p.m., a man in Gage Park was shot in the stomach and chest, but lived.

    At 6:35 p.m., a plumbing contractor, Marcus Hendricks of Flossmoor, was shot and killed in his Roseland office — the first murder of the weekend.

    Hendricks, the 31-year old owner of Hendricks Plumbing and Sewers, had left for work late that morning so he could have breakfast with his daughter and stepson before helping the nanny send them off to school. He had visited a few job sites and promised his wife, Desiree, that he’d be home early.

    Hendricks had grown up in Washington Heights, just a neighborhood away from his shop. He was well-aware of the gangs, guns, drugs and overwhelming poverty all around him. He gave jobs to guys looking to turn their lives around. Guys like his alleged killer, Bennie Teague, a convicted armed robber who had been found not guilty of murder in 2004.

    Teague, the police say, walked into the shop at 115th and Halsted, covered his face with a T-shirt and shot his boss in the stomach with an AK-47 assault rifle.

    A woman who worked at a beauty parlor next door came running. She found Hendricks struggling for breath. When the paramedics came, he asked them to call his new bride of six months. But by the time Desiree arrived at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, her husband was gone.

    Teague led police on a chase. He allegedly shot at and missed three officers. The cops caught Teague about 7:30 p.m. at a house near 113th and Union. They found an assault rifle under the porch.

    About 45 minutes later, two men were shot and wounded in South Chicago.

    All the while, Angel hung out at home, killing time before meeting up with Temo Perez, his best pal.

    Friends
    On New Year’s Eve last year, Temo rode shotgun with Angel on the way to a party. Temo had a ring in his pocket and a plan to ask his best girl to marry him.

    “What’s your Plan B?” Angel kidded him.

    It’s the kind of thing you can say to your best friend since preschool, the friend you’ve spent so many great times with — Mexican Independence Day on 26th Street, rodeos in the south suburbs and long road trips to Mexico.

    After Temo popped the question, Angel just had to know: “What did she say? What did she say?”

    “Yes” was the answer, which made it immediately clear that “Plan B” — selling the ring and partying in Cancun together — was no longer an option.

    Temo will always remember that day — the day his girl said yes — just as he will never forget, for other reasons, Sunday, April 20.

    Angel showed up at the grocery store around 9 p.m. to help Temo close up. They talked outside in the cool night air, staring at the girls outside Volkan, a Latino disco across the street.

    Across town, at about 9:30, shots rang out in South Shore. Melvin Thomas and his distant cousin, Rhonell Savala, both just 18, were found lying in a parkway near 76th and Phillips, in front of the Free Salvation M.B. Church.

    The weekend body count had just hit three.

    Thomas had been visiting from Downstate Galesburg. His family had moved to Galesburg after his release from a Vermillion County juvenile detention center, having gotten into some trouble while living in Danville. The Thomas family, ironically, had moved to Danville in 2006 to put a little distance between Melvin and a notorious stretch of Washington Street in suburban Harvey where he had grown up — Gangster Disciple turf. Thomas’ only run-in with police had been in Danville, and his time in the juvenile lockup had changed him, his sister, Ashlee Thomas, said. He wanted to get a job, a better life.

    Thomas had been in Chicago for about a month, and spent a lot of time with Savala, who was awaiting trial on 12 felony counts of unlawful use of a weapon. Friends say Savala liked to wear a black glove on his shooting hand.

    The two teens spent a few days helping Savala’s mother move to a new apartment. At night, they hung out with a couple of girls, which led to an argument with some guys from “Terrortown,” a gang ’hood controlled by the Black P Stone Rangers.

    At 9:30 that night, Thomas and Savala left a corner store with the two girls. They spotted a car creeping down the street.

    The girls ran one way. Thomas and Savala ran the other. Somebody jumped from the car, opened fire and jumped back in, and the car sped off.

    After a few minutes, when Thomas didn’t answer his cell phone, the girls ran back to find him.

    Savala was dead, but Thomas was still alive. He reached out to one of the girls. Blood spilled from his mouth, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he died.

    Blood, sweat and beers
    At 10:30 p.m., Temo and Angel locked up the store and went down to the basement to get in a workout — bench press. They pumped out reps with 165 pounds on the bar.

    At about that time in South Chicago, Ricardo Sanchez stepped out on his front porch for a smoke and a chat on the phone with his sister in California.

    Sanchez had lived in South Chicago for 45 years, and had lived in that white house with the mint-green trim at 83rd and Exchange for nearly a decade.

    He was pacing back and forth on the stoop when a man in his early 20s, wearing a black jacket with a black hood that hung over a black ball cap, climbed the steps and demanded money.

    Sanchez, a 65-year-old retired steelworker who did odd jobs for extra cash, had $900 on him — the down payment for an upholstery side job. He wouldn’t give it up.

    There was a scuffle. Then . . . POP.

    The shooter ran north on Exchange, disappearing into the shadows. Sanchez struggled in the door, holding his chest.

    He made it to the dining room and sat at the head of the table. “I’ve been shot,” he said. “Call an ambulance.”

    His shirt was soaked in blood. His live-in girlfriend of three years, Maria Camarena, whom he had met when she was a waitress at TNT Restaurant a few blocks away, was in shock. But her son, Emmanuel Hernandez, called 911.

    Emmanuel laid Sanchez on the floor and held his hand to the wound, keeping pressure on it, while Camarena rubbed alcohol on her love’s forehead. It might keep him awake, and the 911 dispatcher had said he must stay awake. The bullet had torn through his chest and out his back.

    But even as they waited for paramedics — and even as Angel and Temo talked outside a grocery store — shootings raged on in other parts of town.

    At 10:45 p.m., a man was shot and wounded in the arm while driving through Gage Park.

    Sanchez was rushed to Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn.

    At 11:35 p.m., a man was shot and wounded in Uptown.

    Ten minutes later, two kids out after curfew were shot and wounded in Englewood.

    Sanchez died in surgery.

    And days later, Camarena would find an engagement ring that Sanchez had hidden in the bottom of a drawer.

    But now, at midnight on this Friday in April, Angel and Temo sat in the office of the grocery store, sipping beers and watching celebrity gossip shows on TV.

    Since Angel had woken up that day, 15 people had been shot in Chicago, and four had died.

    And hardly anyone had noticed.

    Saturday’s bloody start
    Angel returned home and went to bed, but not before five more people were shot.

    At 12:51 a.m., a man was shot and wounded in the back in Chicago Lawn.

    About 40 minutes later, a man was shot and wounded in Chatham.

    An hour later, a man was shot and wounded in Humboldt Park.

    At 2:15 a.m., a 31-year-old man was shot and wounded in the neck in Englewood.

    Twenty minutes after that, a man was shot and wounded in a drive-by in West Garfield Park.

    While Angel slept, a paroled felon who neighbors said had recently started running a dope house in the 300 block of North Avers Street in Garfield Park was murdered — the weekend’s fifth killing.

    And that one, at 5:50 a.m., really woke up the neighborhood.

    Michael Giles had moved to the house on Avers about a month ago. He had been released on parole six months into a two-year drug sentence. He lived with a woman and six kids.

    “We were outside, and all of a sudden, we heard pow, pow, pow — gunshots,” said 14-year-old neighbor Monique Elam. “Then we see some men running out the building. We all ran. Next thing you know, the police came. Then they brought the body out.”

    It was Giles, 26, a career criminal with a long arrest record for weapons and drugs.

    With a rap sheet like that, Giles matched the profile of most shooting victims in Chicago, about 70 percent of whom have criminal records.

    An hour later, Giles was pronounced dead at Mount Sinai Hospital, which the gang-bangers and cops in that part of town call “Mt. Die-ni.”

    At 7:09 a.m., the first report of the rash of shootings appeared on the Sun-Times wire service under the headline, “Weekend gets off to violent start.”

    Local TV stations followed up. Mayor Daley and Police Supt. Jody Weis called a press conference. Soon the dramatic start to Chicago’s spring spike in shootings was national news, making CNN and Fox.

    At 10 on that Saturday morning, Angel awoke to the smell of his grandmother’s home cooking. She liked to spoil him that way.

    After breakfast, he slipped out to the garage — a favorite hang where friends always knew they could find him — to tinker with a car he’d been working on.

    While Angel turned wrenches in Little Village, Raul Lemus in Chicago Lawn dropped off his Chevy Astro van at Omar’s Auto Repair.

    Lemus had a headache, so he went to Family Dollar to get Advil and a bag of chips. At 11:17 a.m., someone pulled up in a Volvo and shot him twice in the abdomen outside Omar’s.

    Family Dollar manager Simeon Wilson heard a sound like a car running over a pop bottle, then sirens. As Lemus bled, as Wilson remembers it, paramedics argued about his injuries. “The ambulance people said, ‘You’re not shot, get up.’ He said, ‘I am shot.’ They made him stand up. He said, ‘I can’t breathe. I am shot.’ He kept saying, ‘I can’t breathe.’ Then they believed.”

    Of all the murders in 2006 for which Chicago detectives determined a motive, about half were blamed on gang violence.

    Lemus’ friends say people should forget the “45 Saints” tattoo on his right hand. He was turning his life around, they say, and spent so much time with his 5-year-old daughter that people called him “Mr. Mom.”

    Mr. Mom died at Stroger Hospital the next morning.

    The weekend body count bumped up to six.

    Minding his brothers
    At about 5:45 on Saturday evening, Angel’s mother asked him to keep an eye on his brothers while she went to a baby shower.

    For Angel, hanging out with his brothers — Gonzalo, 18, and Roberto, 13 — wasn’t a chore.

    “What I ask him, what I need, he never says no — no matter what,” his mother said.

    Anything his brothers wanted — movies, clothes, a little extra cash — Angel got for them. He kept them in line, too. Don’t hang with gang-bangers, he said. Don’t be stupid and flunk out of school.

    Have big dreams, he told Roberto, an eighth-grader who wants to play college football. “He was like my second dad,” Roberto says.

    That evening, the two younger boys ran a few errands with Angel, who had promised to deliver cases of Corona and Modelo to a friend’s 21st birthday party in Old Town.

    On the ride over, Roberto and Angel talked about cars and how if they were lucky one day maybe they could buy one of those fancy condos near North and Ashland.

    When they returned home, Gonzalo and Roberto ate pizza and watched the post-apocalyptic thriller “I Am Legend,” which Angel had rented for them at Blockbuster.

    And over the next few hours, while Angel waited for his mother to return home, eight more people were shot and wounded in Chicago.

    A 34-year-old man was shot in his backyard on the East Side. A 20-year-old man was hit in Englewood. In Austin, starting at 10:30 p.m., six people were shot. The victims included three kids out after curfew.

    Angel’s mother, Felipa, arrived home around midnight. Angel’s friends were waiting in the alley.

    It’s too late to go out, Felipa told him. But he assured her he would be OK.

    “Remember,’’ his mother said, “we are going to church tomorrow.’’

    With that, Angel was out the door. He texted Temo at midnight and made plans to meet up later.

    Meanwhile, another teenager was shot and and wounded in Englewood.

    By 2:30 a.m., Angel had made his way to Fiesta Cantina in Wrigleyville

    Four minutes later, a 24-year-old man was shot and wounded in Rogers Park.

    At 3 a.m., Angel was sitting with Temo and his fiancee in a booth at Temo’s family store. They ate pizza and talked about their night on the town.

    Eight minutes later, a 26-year-old man was shot and wounded in the leg in South Shore.

    But by the time Angel finally went to bed that morning, the shooting had stopped, taking a breather.

    Standing in the church door
    Angel got up late for church at St. Roman’s on Sunday morning, and his mother left without him. But about midway through mass, she looked over her shoulder and spotted her son near the back door, standing in his usual spot.

    As mass let out and Angel caught up with friends on the block, Chicago’s weekend shootings resumed — this time on the Near South Side, where a man was shot and wounded at 27th and Prairie.

    Angel spent the early afternoon on Sunday back in his garage, which was equipped with a TV and a giant cooler. That’s where his “adopted brother” from the muffler shop, Armando Diaz, picked him up at about 5.

    They drove to Home Depot, picked up a few tools, and were back in the garage by 6:30 or so.

    At about that time in nearby Douglas Park, a young man, just 19, was shot and wounded.

    Police scanners were quiet after that — for about four hours. Then one last young man would die.

    At 7 o’clock, Angel went to a buddy’s birthday party on 21st Street just west of California — Latin King gang turf so notoriously violent that a police surveillance camera had kept watch for more than a year.

    At 9:57 p.m., Angel called Temo. He was going home to get a coat — the weather had changed — and then to Mi Tierra to watch a mariachi band play.

    Angel walked out front to wait with the birthday boy, who doesn’t want to be identified, for more people to arrive. He sat on the stoop next door to make a phone call.

    It was 10:25 p.m.

    Just as friends arrived in one car, a second car — this one filled with gang members— pulled up and unloaded a flurry of shots.

    Officer Jon Medina was on patrol that night when a call came — shots fired on 21st Street. People down.

    Medina’s cell phone rang. Angel was shot. Caught in the crossfire.

    The birthday boy was grazed by two bullets.

    “I ducked down. I felt burning in my leg. I checked to see if I was shot and I saw Angel,” he said. “He fell down the stairs and was bleeding a lot.”

    One bullet ripped through a red pickup truck and blasted Angel in the face. A neighbor grabbed him as he lay bleeding.

    “I just waited there with him,” the neighbor said.

    When Medina roared up, Angel was in horrible condition.

    “I got down by him,’’ Medina said. “I kept telling him, ‘Jon’s here. Jon’s here.’ ’’

    An ambulance rushed Angel to Mount Sinai. Temo called Angel’s mother.

    Something, he told her, happened on 21st Street.

    “What is Angel doing on 21st Street?” she thought, never thinking how bad it could be. “Maybe there was a fight.”

    But when Felipa Ramirez arrived at Mount Sinai, the waiting room was crowded with cops and Angel’s friends. She spotted Medina walking out of the emergency room, struggling for breath, leaning on two other officers.

    “When I saw him, I thought the worst,’’ she said. “I thought that’s it.”

    Security guards wouldn’t let her see her boy, but she recognized his brown dress shoes on the floor near a gurney. She leaned on a wall, slumped down and prayed aloud in Spanish: “If you take him, God, take him completely.”

    Two miles away at 11:19 p.m., even as a mother at Mount Sinai prayed for her angel, two final people were shot on this bloody weekend. They were a man and a woman and they managed to live.

    But Angel died, six minutes later. Felipa Ramirez spent a quiet moment with her son.

    “I touched his hair,” she said. “It was still warm.”

    Epilogue — April 28
    Soft Mexican music played as folks gathered at the funeral home in Stickney.

    They looked at photos of a burly, smiling young man. Angel in kindergarten. Angel in a cap and gown. Angel in a tuxedo at prom. Angel on vacation in Mexico.

    The Diaz family from the muffler shop was there, making sure things went smoothly. Roberto and Gonzalo stood together; whispering to a friend.

    Felipa Ramirez wept on a couch. A band formed a semicircle around Angel’s casket and played traditional songs. Horns, guitars and sad voices filled the packed room.

    Jon Medina was there, haunted by a memory.

    “He looked like he recognized me,” Medina said, remembering how Angel had died. “I know he saw me. It makes me feel a little better.”

    As the mariachi music played, Temo got lost in his thoughts. “I didn’t think I’d be hearing mariachi until my wedding,” he told himself. “It shouldn’t be this way.”

    For weeks after Angel’s murder, Felipa Ramirez remiained in her home, surrounded by family. She built a shrine to Angel in the living room. She suffered through Mother’s Day — a day on which Angel always gave her flowers.

    “It’s so hard for a family that member is gone,” she said recently, sitting in her living room.

    She looked up at a water stain on the pink-papered wall. It had appeared and grown in the days after Angel was shot — two thin streaks stretched half way down the wall.

    “Even the house cried,” she said.

  14. i hate to say this but until elected aldermen an city official start doing what the people elected them for this is a loss cause. I say this because most people are lazy an do not want to do what is required to get the bum’s to doing there job which is going to require protest an walking demonstrations lead by the people of the city of chicago. an i’m not taling a few hundred or a few thousand i’m talking about a real mass of people doing demonstrations that will get the attention of elected officials. its time to stop the voting of republican an democrats alike an start voting officail’s of the people an from the people. but i’ll stop dreaming because when an xbox is on or american idol is being televised it seems to be the only way to get the attention of the consumer.

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