Articles and More!: Chicago grieves horrific park shooting

Friday, September 20, 2013

Chicago grieves horrific park shooting

Semecha Nunn, the grandmother of a 3-yearold shot in the face during a basketball game on Chicago’s South Side, makes an emotional plea for the violence to stop in her neighborhood.

By Elizabeth Chuck and Alexander Smith, NBC News

The grandmother of a 3-year-old who was among 13 people injured in a shooting Thursday night in Chicago made a tearful plea Friday for an end to gun violence in her city.

“It needs to stop. It needs to stop,” Semecha Nunn told reporters the day after a gunman with an assault rifle opened fire at a basketball court on Chicago’s South Side. “Y’all out here killing these innocent people, kids, parents, grandmothers, mothers, fathers — it’s got to stop.”

Three-year-old Deonta “Tay-man” Howard was in serious but stable condition after being shot in the ear after Thursday’s shooting, which occurred at about 10:15 p.m. on Thursday.

“He had an entry wound and an exit wound in his jaw. He’s heavily sedated and resting [after surgery],” the family’s pastor, Corey Brooks of Chicago’s New Beginnings Church, said.

Chicago spate of gun violence — which this week earned the city the title of being the nation’s murder capital in 2012, according to the FBI — has already shattered Nunn’s family once, just three weeks ago when Chicago suffered a deadly Labor Day weekend.

According to Brooks, Deonta’s uncle, Jerome Wood, 21, was shot and killed on Sept. 2 in what “was believed to be a retaliation shooting” — one of eight people who died that weekend and 20 who were injured.

“I just buried my son and now I’m going through something else,” Nunn said. “[God does] not send me through nothing he don’t want me to go through.”

The family does not believe there is a connection between Wood’s death and Thursday night’s shooting, but is shell-shocked after being hit by tragedy twice.

“It’s very hurtful. They’re really traumatized,” Brooks said.

Chicago’s top police officer said it was a “miracle” no one was killed Thursday night.

“A military-grade weapon on the streets of Chicago is simply unacceptable,” a visibly frustrated police superintendent Gary McCarthy said at a news conference Friday. “We should not accept assault-style weapons in our communities.”

Sixteen rounds were fired in the shooting, McCarthy said.

Chicago had more than 500 homicides in 2012, according to FBI data, more than any other American city. Chicago’s total exceeded that of New York City, which recorded 419, and Los Angeles, which saw 299. Both cities have populations greater than that of Chicago.

The latest of violence prompted Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who was in Washington, D.C., to cut short his trip and cancel a planned visit to New Jersey to stump for Newark Mayor Cory Booker.

“Senseless and brazen acts of violence have no place in Chicago and betray all that we stand for,” Emanuel said in a statement.

“The perpetrators of this crime will be brought to justice and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

Chicago police confirm that a shooting which injured 13 people is believed to have been gang-related, and that it was carried out with an assault-style rifle with a high-capacity magazine.

The shooting occurred at in Cornell Square Park in the Back of the Yards neighborhood in Chicago, police spokesman Ron Gaines told NBC News.

The others wounded ranged in age from 15 to 41. Their injuries included gunshot wounds to the stomach, arm, leg, knee, wrists and buttocks. Their conditions ranged from serious to good early Friday, according to police.

Four victims were listed in a serious condition early Friday. McCarthy said all of the injuries were non-life-threatening.

“It’s a miracle in this instance that there have been no fatalities based upon the lethality of the weaponry used at the scene,” he said. “What is needed in Chicago and in cities across this country is real action on reasonable gun laws on the state and federal level.”

Authorities are saying that a gang-related shooting spree in Chicago has left 13 people shot, including a 3-year old. Across the city yesterday, more than 23 people were wounded, with 2 fatalities. NBC’s John Yang reports.

Detectives were interviewing witnesses and believe the shooting was gang-related. One to three suspects are believed to be at large, according to McCarthy.

Chicago’s police department has touted gains in the city against violence. The department has said that its anti-gang program, narcotics initiatives, and community policing have resulted in fewer shootings and murders over the same period than the year prior.