A babe in her aboriginal adolescence accustomed a abundant red haversack stood at the advanced accomplish of a Southwest Side home on Campbell Avenue backward Thursday afternoon, hugged a boy continuing there, again absolved south. She beyond an alleyway and aerial chicken abomination arena band to avoid underneath, alone her arm and the band afterwards breaking stride and anesthetized assemblage who stepped abreast for her. Two boys, 14 and 15, had been attempt beneath than an hour before, abreast this alleyway that parallels 45th Artery amid Campbell and Maplewood avenues. The older teen died, and the adolescent one was in austere action at Stroger hospital.
The beforehand boy was articular as Jeyson Gonzalez, who lived in the 5700 block of South Damen Avenue in the West Englewood adjacency on the South Side, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office. He was arresting asleep at 4:15 p.m. on Thursday. As the babe at the arena absolved away, 9-year-old Isaac Rosales headed home from Shields Elementary Academy a few blocks north. He accustomed to acquisition chicken band beyond the sidewalk and badge double-parked forth the attenuated street, blocking traffic. The boys weren’t his friends, he said, but they were his neighbors. The fourth-grader wore black-rimmed glasses and stood not absolutely 5 anxiety tall. He wore fleet pants and a analogous polo over a aphotic undershirt. He enjoys school, he said, and his admired capacity are amusing studies and science.
Peter Nickeas / Chicago Tribune
The double-shooting abashed him, but it’s not the aboriginal time he's been abashed breadth he lives. He screamed afterwards a assemblage affiliate appeared abaft his mom’s car one aphotic night while she was aggravating to park. Badge cuffed the man abnormal later. He saw an advance central a McDonald’s, either a annihilation or a robbery, but he remembers alone the commotion. Isaac recalled lockdowns at school, anybody ambuscade in classrooms with lights off. Principals beyond the burghal admit these back addition fires a gun outside. They accumulate kids central until admiral can bouncer their dismissal. Their armed attendance counters the abandon accouchement ability contrarily face. What the kids don’t see, they apprehend about at school. Isaac remembers acquirements of a anatomy begin in the McKinley Esplanade Lagoon a few blocks east. (Investigators begin a burst arch and added anatomy genitalia there.) And now two boys attempt doors from breadth Isaac lives. Police didn’t acquisition burglarize casings at this cutting and that was unusual, according to two badge sources. Gangs complex in this breadth accept more angry to AK-47 and AR-15-type rifles as weapons of choice. It’s the alone breadth and assemblage battle in the burghal — involving four gangs beyond Brighton Esplanade and Back of the Yards — breadth rifles are adopted to handguns.
“The adolescent boys charge help,” Isaac’s aunt Carmen Rosales said in Spanish alfresco their home Thursday afternoon. “The kids are scared. We can’t appear outside.”
The abandon is common and the abhorrence is communicable — in accouchement like Isaac, who struggles to bethink all the abandon he has apparent already, and in parents who experience moments of alarm until they can acquisition a son or babe afterwards adjacent gunfire. Isaac said he is abashed to comedy in parks. His mother is abashed of him arena alfresco during alcove unless badge are around. Four bodies were attempt alfresco the academy one afternoon in December about 3:45 p.m., afterwards academy adjournment but afore Isaac larboard after-school activities. Deering Commune badge admiral esplanade alfresco the academy during alcove and dismissal, but the commune is large, its assemblage conflicts abundant and the cardinal of admiral limited. They are generally active elsewhere. “I told my mom, because I’m abashed of actuality actuality in Chicago," Isaac said. "I’m abashed to be next. Because I can’t go alfresco because of the shooting. I can’t comedy outside. I absolutely appetite to go to the park, but I’m abashed to be one of their victims. I feel like we charge to move about abroad so we can break safe.” His mother doesn’t let him comedy in the access in advanced of their yellow-brick bungalow. Neighbors don’t let their accouchement alfresco either. For every abode with accouchement nearby, there were two whose accouchement apprenticed their faces adjoin advanced allowance account windows, aggravating to see what was accident bottomward the street. “I feel sad,” said Isaac's mother, Cristina Rosales. “We alive appropriate actuality (for) nine years and … I don’t know. I’m sad. I’m scared.”
She fears the gangs will recruit her son. A few doors down, Daisy Martinez has a 17-year-old son who witnessed a drive-by cutting back he was 10. The boy screamed for her as he hid beneath a car as his home was sprayed with gunfire. He’s been abashed of “that crowd” anytime since, she said. Martinez’s 7-year-old babe played with a accessory the aforementioned age as she looked over the abomination arena Thursday evening. With badge anchored out front, the two girls in blush and amethyst pants acquainted chargeless abundant to laugh, ball and hunt anniversary added about the parkway, one aggravating to hug the added while they giggled loud abundant for the adjacency to hear.
Peter Nickeas / Chicago Tribune
Martinez said they were able to let their bouncer bottomward in a way they commonly can’t. Like Isaac, the girls aren’t accustomed out front. Back they’re in the backyard, they’re not as blissful about arena as they were able to be Thursday night, with badge and neighbors all alfresco watching. “It’s sad. It’s ridiculous," Martinez said. "I anguish about the kids advancing and activity because some crazy absurd cutting added gangbangers and they could get bent up in the crossfire." Her aboriginal abhorrence afterwards Thursday’s cutting was for her 17-year-old son, who leaves Kelly Aerial Academy anniversary day afore 3 p.m. and walks his 7-year-old sister home afore activity to work. The aerial academy draws acceptance from both abandon of California Avenue, the adding band amid the Two-Six and Satan’s Disciples artery gangs. That aerial academy won’t be an advantage for 24-year-old Adriana Bautista’s little brother. Her ancestors has lived a few doors bottomward from the Martinez and Rosales families for years. Because of the abandon in the neighborhood, her adolescent brother commutes to Orozco elementary academy in Pilsen. Her ancestor has a 100-mile round-trip anniversary day to a architecture job, and her mother works in housekeeping at a city hotel. They pay their mortgage, their taxes and adulation their home. “Everyone consistently hears the bad," Martinez said. "There are still bodies who alive here, like us, normal, don’t appetite annihilation to do with this. We appetite to airing our dogs and not get hit by some accidental bullet. "It break my heart.”
pnickeas@chicagotribune.com
An beforehand adaptation of this adventure acclimated an incorrect aftermost name for Jeyson Gonzalez.
