The Windy City

[joan1984]

Baby in Car Seat Shot Multiple Times,
Father Wounded in Woodlawn
March 11, 2013 1:25pm | By Tanveer Ali, Darryl Holliday, and Casey Cora   

CHICAGO — A 5-month old girl and her father were shot Monday afternoon in the Woodlawn neighborhood, authorities said.

The baby was shot multiple times and rushed to Comer Children's Hospital, said Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford.

Relatives gathered at the hospital identified the baby as Johnylah Watkins. She's the daughter of 25-year-old Joe Watkins and Joenna Watkins, 21.

Relatives said the girl was riding in a carseat in a vehicle with her father when someone shot at them.

Both were in serious-to-critical condition, police said.

Mary Young, the baby's grandmother, offered a brief interview with reporters, saying Johnylah was undergoing surgery.

"She ain't more than six months old," Young said while attempting to collect herself.

The shooting happened at 12:48 p.m. in the 6500 block of South Maryland Avenue, Langford said.

Joe Watkins was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, police and family said.

A police source said the wounded man was a gang member, but police would not release further information.

Family members have begun huddling outside outside the emergency room doors at the children's hospital in Hyde Park, many arriving with tears in their eyes. They're waiting outside in a light rain, awaiting word on the baby's condition.

Casha Moore, 18, is Johnylah's aunt. She said she was walking outside a few blocks away when she heard up to 10 shots ring out.

"It was so loud. So so loud," she said. "It was a big gun."
 

Read more: http://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20130311/woodlawn/baby-shot-multiple-times-another-wounded-woodlawn#ixzz2NGTwq994

Good thing it was a 10 bullet clip, or may have defied Gun Control Laws!

[Katiebee]

When you are a gang member the consequences will often leak outside of your gang sphere. Or to be totally insensitive, don't get involved in a gang if you don't want your family to become collateral damage.

[Athos131]

Considering it's a gang related shooting the details on the gun are irrelevant. 

[joan1984]

Exactly, only criminals are unaffected by the law, can have any gun they like!

Considering it's a gang related shooting the details on the gun are irrelevant. 

[Athos131]

Shooting that killed 6-month-old likely gang retaliation, source says

http://www.suntimes.com/18800725-761/shooting-that-killed-6-month-old-likely-gang-retaliation-source-says.html

Police suspect a gunman seeking revenge opened fire on a man and his 6-month-old daughter — killing her, a law enforcement source said Tuesday.

Gang members in the Woodlawn neighborhood where the shooting happened Monday afternoon thought the father, Jonathan Watkins, was linked to an earlier robbery and shooting, the source said.

“This looks like it was a gang-related retaliation,” the source said.

Watkins is a documented gang member with a criminal background, sources said.

“We’re not clear at this point if he’s cooperating,” police Supt. Garry McCarthy said, acknowledging that police have reached out to the Rev. Corey Brooks to obtain help from the family. Brooks has acted as a family spokesman.

“We don’t have one individual who is stepping up to help us,” McCarthy said.

Watkins was recovering from bullet wounds at Northwestern Memorial Hospital where he remained in critical condition Tuesday.

“I was trying to help. I was trying to help. I was trying to help her,” Jonathan Watkins said in an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times shortly after learning his 6-month-old daughter, Jonylah, died.

“They told me she didn’t make it,” Watkins said in a brief phone interview, his voice cracking with emotion.

He said he has no idea who shot them, although McCarthy said it appears he was the “intended victim.”

Watkins was standing on the curb on the 6500 block of South Maryland, using the front passenger seat of a minivan as he changed her diaper, when a gunman emerged unnoticed from a gangway behind him and opened fire, hitting Watkins and his baby.

While police are exploring several different angles to the investigation, McCarthy said Tuesday that “there are very strong gang overtones to this event.”

McCarthy acknowledged the father has an extensive criminal history and a police source said Watkins has more than 30 prior arrests.

Among the arrests was one Dec. 9, 2007 when police found a 9mm handgun in a car Watkins was driving in the 6100 block of South Cottage Grove — about five blocks from Monday’s shooting. Watkins pleaded guilty to aggravated use of a weapon and was sentenced to three years in prison. He allegedly told police he was carrying the gun for protection, court records show.

On Tuesday, a woman who identified herself as Jonathan Watkins’ sister answered the phone in the hospital and said: “He’s devastated right now and just trying to deal with that.”

Hospital staff told Watkins they planned to try to get him up and walking Tuesday, but Watkins’ sister described him as emotional “as anyone” who lost a baby to gun violence might be.

In a brief interview, Brooks said he met with Watkins in his hospital room Tuesday: “Basically I just prayed with him, I prayed with his family.”

Brooks said Watkins was “pretty sedated” and they didn’t discuss what is obviously a deep loss.

Brooks said a tearful Jonylah’s mother, Judy Watkins, 20, was also in the hospital room as they prayed for the couple’s loss and Jonathan Watkins’ recovery.

“They’re a young couple — they haven’t been married but two weeks, so this is a lot to go through.”

Mayor Rahm Emanuel, at a unrelated news conference Tuesday, called the shooting “a senseless, despicable act of violence that is heart-breaking.”

Although the city saw homicides drop in February by 50 percent from the previous year — a trend continuing into March, the mayor said that progress in reducing violence “is only one measure.”

Emanuel refused to comment on McCarthy’s statement that the Jonathan Watkins appeared to have been targeted in the shooting.

“The child is truly innocent, and that’s my focus.” Emanuel said. “I’ll leave the law enforcement side to the law enforcement side.”

The shooting Monday was Jonylah’s second brush with gun violence. Judy Watkins was shot in the knee when she was eight months pregnant with Jonylah, less than three blocks from Monday’s shooting.

Jonathan Watkins, who relatives said was in his late 20s, was shot in the side and buttocks and suffered a graze wound to his cheek.

After the shooting, the gunman ran across a vacant lot, hopped into a blue van and drove north.

Police were investigating whether the shooting may have been prompted by an angry post on Facebook, a source told the Chicago Sun-Times. Tiffany Young, 31, one of Judy Watkins’ sisters, said she didn’t know anything about a possible Facebook feud.

Jonathan Watkins and his daughter had been visiting friends in the neighborhood when the shooting occurred, said Mary Young, the baby’s maternal grandmother.

The violence prompted six African-American aldermen and former gang enforcer-turned-“urban translator” Wallace “Gator” Bradley to hold a City Hall news conference Tuesday to condemn the murder as “out of bounds.”

Ald. Willie Cochran (20th), a former Chicago Police officer, said he has taken the unprecedented step of calling gang leaders to essentially deliver the message that, it’s OK to kill each other but don’t kill innocent people and certainly not kids.

“We’ve talked with some of the gang leaders and we’ve talked about how important it is for them to not harbor offenders that they know are offenders who have committed crimes associated with innocent victims,” Cochran said. “These are acts that are carried out by people on the street. And on the street is where it has to be dealt with.”

Cochran said he never talked to the gang leaders about who shot Jonyla. He simply sought and received a “commitment from them to pass” an important message.

“Innocent victims are unacceptable. They are out-of-bounds. They’re off-limits. ... This is unacceptable. Six months old,” the alderman said.

“We have gotten support and commitments from people we have talked to. I am not gonna name names. I am just going to tell you that through those conversations I have and the knowledge you have of me that these can be supported.”

Bradley was once a confidant of convicted murderer and gang kingpin Larry Hoover. He has since become a political gadfly and go-between.

In a strange twist during police torture victim Aaron Patterson’s civil case, a judge allowed Bradley to sit in court with Patterson’s attorney as an “urban translator” to control the volatile defendant.

On Tuesday, Bradley stressed his commitment to work “within the perimeter of the law” and not to tolerate what he called “vigilante acts” by gang members.

“We’re saying nobody can be protected [who’s] responsible for killing that little baby or killing any other children. Any senseless shootings and killing. Nobody can be protected. You can’t hide them. It’s not acceptable. There’s no excuse for it. It’s not acceptable,” he said.

Bradley called Jonylah’s death “the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

Referring to two notorious and now imprisoned gang kingpins, he said, “Larry Hoover and Jeff Fort have been sending words to the street for a long time that senseless shootings and killings has to stop. But for some reason, no one felt [the need] to put that message out to the people.”

Bradley added, “Now, everyone sees there’s a difference between a gang-banger and a gang member. You’ve got gang members who are parents and grandparents who were glad to get away from the criminal activity of gang life. Just because the father [who] got shot was the father of that baby [and] happened to be a gang member don’t mean he’s less of a victim.”

[Janus]

So basically the baby was murdered because Dad is a dumb fuck gang banger and she got caught in the cross fire. Shame.

[Athos131]

Derrick Rose Update: Derrick Rose is an Excellent Human Being

http://pippenainteasy.com/2013/03/13/derrick-rose-update-derrick-rose-is-an-excellent-human-being/

After a string of three “Derrick Rose Injury Update” posts in as many days, it would seem time for a change of pace. Therefore, this is not an update on Derrick Rose’s rehab, but Derrick Rose’s humanity.

I’m guessing most of you are at least vaguely aware of Rose’s backstory. Rose grew up in Englewood, on Chicago’s South Side. The area is infamous for its gang and gun-related violence, but — in large part thanks to the committed efforts of his family — Rose escaped intact, eventually making it to the NBA with the Bulls. There are a lot of people who aren’t so lucky.

You may have heard of the 6-month-old child who was shot and killed recently. It’s a terrible story, made worse by the lack of anyone willing to help solve the case. But there is a tidbit to the story that gives hope, even amid tragedy.

From the above link:

    Reverend Corey Brooks, the family spokesman, says Bulls star Derrick Rose has offered to pay for Jonylah’s funeral.

It’s very, very hard to get past the awfulness of what happened, but it’s little things like this that give me hope. That an NBA player, much less a megastar like Rose, would step in an offer to pay for the entire funeral of a child he — so far as I can tell — had no connection to, is incredible. I wish more people were willing to step up and help people in times of trouble. Maybe, if more people were like Derrick Rose, the killer would have been caught right now.

[Athos131]

http://www.suntimes.com/news/sneed/18858861-452/penny-pritzker-for-commerce-secretary-its-a-done-deal.html

The baby murder . . .

Setting the record straight:

The story of the murder of Jonylah Watkins, a 6-month-old baby caught in the crosshairs of an unspeakable crime while her father, Jonathan Watkins, 29, was changing her diapers in a minivan, is changing.

Sneed is told that Watkins, a street gang member who has been arrested 39 times — and was the intended victim of the shooting — is “unwilling to cooperate” with the police despite news reports, according to a top police source.

“Watkins is giving the police just enough to seem to be cooperating,” the source said.

◆ Translation: “Watkins was unwilling to give police pass codes for two cellphones found at the scene of the shooting,” the source said. The pass codes might have led police to see who called Watkins before the shooting.

◆ The shocker: As a result, police had to send the cellphones to the FBI in Quantico, Va., to open them up — and have been unable to reach a Watkins family member who had earlier told reporters that Watkins “knew who shot him.”

“This person has been ducking the police for three days,” said the source.

In addition, contrary to earlier news reports — which garnered national headlines — the baby was not shot while Watkins changed her diaper, the source added.

“The baby was sitting in Watkins’ lap in the driver’s seat when she was hit by one bullet — not five — which wound up in her diaper,” the source said. “Tragically, one bullet caused a lot of damage and claimed the gift of her life.”

Watson was released Thursday evening from Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he was treated for injuries from the shooting.

A short time later — in response to reports that he was not cooperating with police — Watkins made a very public show of walking into the Area South police department late Thursday under the glare of television lights to talk to detectives investigating the case.

Watkins stood silently as the Rev. Corey Brooks, acting as the Watkins family spokesman, talked to reporters.

“Whatever the police need to know that he may know, we want to make sure that he fully committed himself to letting them know that,” Brooks said