CHICAGO – Following months of a re-ignited gun reform debate, the fatal shooting of 15-year-old honor student Hadiya Pendleton at a Chicago park added more fuel to the fire, causing residents and officials to put out major calls of action countrywide.
The sophomore majorette had recently experienced a trip of a lifetime. She returned from Washington, D.C. with her school band and performed in events at President Barack Obama’s second inauguration.
“She was ecstatic about going to Washington, and the experience there was so amazing for her,” Pendleton’s mother, Cleo Cowley, told MSNBC’s Rev. Al Sharpton Thursday in an appearance on Politics Nation.
Just eight days later, police said on Jan. 29, she was shot in the back while she was seeking shelter from the rain with friends in a park. According to Chicago police, the afternoon shooting was most likely over gang turf and Pendleton was not the intended target.
The young student was an advocate for ending gang violence. She appeared in a 2008 public service announcement with another student saying, “There are so many children out there are in gangs and it’s your job as students to say no to gangs and yes to a great future.”
Days later, the community is still outraged of the incident that happens much too often in Chicago.
“You’re shocked by how horrible it is. You’re not numb, but it makes you feel, for lack of a better way to say it, we’re really in a bad place in our society and our community,” said Jitu Brown, 46, an education coordinator with the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization, located in the neighborhood where Pendleton was shot.
Local residents and city, state and U.S. officials have galvanized in an attempt to bring awareness to Chicago’s violence epidemic. In the Kenwood area where Pendleton was shot, the homicide rate has gone up 300 percent between 2010 and 2012, according to Chicago police.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Thursday made plans public to take 200 police officers in administrative positions off the desk and place them on the streets. Although the suggestion was recommended by city officials last week, according to NBC Chicago, it took on a new significance when Pendleton became the poster child for Chicago’s high murder rate.
“When any young person in our city is gunned down without reason, it demands action from all of us,” Emanuel said at a press conference. “As we grieve for Hadiya, we need to work together to protect our greatest resource, the children of the city of Chicago.”
According to Emanuel, the police had received tips about who might have killed Pendleton and wounded a 16-year-old friend. “Please step forward. That is what a good neighbor does,” Emanuel said of anyone with information.
Illinois U.S. Senator Dick Durbin noted Pendleton’s murder at a gun hearing on Capitol Hill this week. “Our biggest problem in Chicago, according to [police] superintendent [Garry] McCarthy, who came to Chicago from New York, we are awash in guns. The confiscation of guns, per capita in Chicago is six times the number of New York City. We have guns everywhere,“ he said.
As of Jan. 30, police said Pendleton was one of the 157 shootings and 42 homicides Chicago had already experienced in 2013. Chicago shamefully topped 500 murders last year for the first time in four years. When Pendleton’s death hit headlines weeks later, it sparked a national conversation reaching the inner walls of the White House.
“I’m glad it did [bring national attention], unfortunately. If this is what needed to bring the attention, then now we have the attention and hopefully everybody will be vigilant and try to make our community safe,” said Cathy Dale, 53, who lives in the neighborhood and serves on the local school council at King College Prep where Pendleton attended.
Dale continued, saying, “I think it has clearly brought national attention, simply because it’s tied to being a mile away from the president’s home.”
After the murder, Obama spokesman Jay Carney said at a press conference that the Obamas were praying for Pendleton’s family. On Jan. 30, a petition was started urging the Obamas to attend Pendleton’s funeral. To receive an official response from the White House, the petition, which was filed in the “open petitions” section of the White House website, must have at least 100,000 signatures. As of early afternoon Friday, the petition was just shy of about 500 signatures to reach its goal.
“… President Obama should stand up and take advantage of a tragic opportunity to keep the anti-gun violence movement engaged,” the petition reads. The petition said if the president and his family attended the funeral, “…then maybe America will pay some attention to the everyday, routine, one-at-a-time death toll wrought by guns in this nation, instead of waiting for the next mass shooting to sit up, notice, talk, and do nothing.”
The entrenched crime issue in the city must be dealt with, local residents say.
Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis issued a statement Thursday saying, “The prevalence of violence on our streets is starting to reduce the wonderful qualities that kids like Hadiya possess—qualities we all want in our children—to homicide statistics. As an educator, I empathize with the teachers for whom the aftermaths of these incidents are grave daily realities. We’re living in a society that’s completely out of kilter. Our children feel disrespected and their outsized response is violence. They’re given no methodology for learning how to cope with their anger.”
“Our community as a whole, has been working very hard to ensure the safety and security of our students,” said Marielle Sainvilus, a press secretary for the Chicago Public Schools, who did not release an official statement following Pendleton’s death. According to her, CPS meets regularly with sister agencies, including Chicago Police Department to talk about strategy and concerted efforts for different neighborhoods around the city to keep students safe.
Although the gun control issue may be highlighted in Pendleton’s death, Brown says, “the gun crisis is the shortsighted way of looking at this. We have a developing crisis, we have a humanity crisis where we treat our young people inhumanely.” He insists that lack of proper educational, developmental and employment opportunities in communities have converged to create many societal problems, including this one.
Dale agrees, saying, “All the social ills in our society, especially in our communities, are the reasons why these things happen.”
Renita D. Young is a Chicago-based multimedia journalist. Follow her on Twitter @RenitaDYoung.