At 2:40 a.m. on June 8, Curtis Sims, a self-employed mechanic, left his girlfriend`s house and headed for his red and white Chevy, parked in the 5300 block of South Bishop Strret.
As he walked out, he wore his baseball cap. For that, he died.
As Sims descended the porch stairs, a car with two men drove up. One opened fire. Mortally wounded, Sims crawled back up the stairs and collapsed. He died the next day.
Police said Sims was shot because his cap was cocked to the right side of his head. His assailants belonged to a gang that tilts its caps to the left.
”To me it was for nothing,” said Sims` girlfriend, Carol Smith, 25. ”I know for a fact he didn`t do anything to anybody. He didn`t take anything from anyone. He didn`t even say anything to anyone. It was for nothing, nothing at all. They were just looking for someone to kill.”
The shooting marked the beginning of a particularly violent week in Chicago. From 12:01 a.m. June 8 to 12:01 a.m. June 15, 20 people were killed. There were myriad reasons-drugs, gangs, domestic altercations. Some for no apparent reason at all. Another 122 people were shot or stabbed, but survived. By Friday morning police had logged 363 homicides this year. That`s 48 more than at the same time last year.
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Beat cops and homicide detectives investigated and chronicled the week of death. Their reports reflect a litany of violence and bloodshed:
June 8-7:10 p.m. Herman Richmond was shot in the heart over a bag of cocaine. He was 21.
Richmond, a part-time cafeteria worker, cashed a check at a currency exchange in the 4300 block of West Madison Street and walked outside, according to his cousin, Bernard Ivy. Some men accused him of selling them poor quality cocaine. One pulled a gun, Richmond ducked behind another man, tripped and fell. He was shot and the gunman escaped.
June 8-9 p.m. Robert Dotson, 32, the eighth of 14 children, decided to go to the store.
”He just said, `Come and lock the door, I`m going to the store,`
” recalled Ruby Wallace, Dotson`s sister. A few feet from their home in the 5100 block of South Paulina Street, Dotson and a friend allegedly tried to buy drugs from a group of men.
Asked the meaning of a five-point star gang symbol, Dotson identified himself as a rival gang member. One man slugged Dotson, who fell and hit his head. He died the next day.
June 9-11:45 p.m. David Noland, 27, was walking in the 8500 block of South Honore Street when 10 to 15 young men ran up, yelling gang slogans, and firing guns. Wounded, Noland lay on the street until one youth approached and pumped several bullets into his body.
”You know, it really hurts because I`ll never see him again and there were a lot of things I didn`t get a chance to tell him,” said Noland`s sister, Renee Anderson. ”God, I didn`t get a chance to say, `I love you.` ” June 10-1:54 a.m. Ramon Pagan, 20, died amidst the gaiety of the annual Puerto Rican festival in Humboldt Park. Car horns honked, salsa music played, nearly everyone waved a Puerto Rican flag.
An argument erupted when someone attempted to grab a flag from a passing car in the 1600 block of North California Avenue. A gunshot rang out, striking Pagan of 3453 W. Beach Ave.
June 10-2:45 a.m. Ronnie Ellis, 30, of 1229 W. Cabrini St. knew his killer. He was strolling with a woman on West Taylor Street in the CHA`s ABLA Homes when a man they both knew shot Ellis three times. Police said he wanted to date Ellis` companion.
June 11-12:02 a.m. The stormy relationship between Lela Jackson, 26, and her boyfriend, Ghazi Abdallah, 52, ended.
The two quarreled in Abdallah`s G&J Auto Body Works, 4812 W. Kinzie St. Police found Jackson, who was eight months` pregnant, with a gunshot in the chest. Abdallah was charged with murder.
”He was extremely jealous and had threatened to kill her if she left him,” said Betty Jackson, the victim`s mother. ”She told me if anything happened to her, don`t believe it was an accident, and make sure he is prosecuted.”
June 11-3:07 a.m. Bernadino Gonzalez, a bus boy, was killed on North Sheridan Road because he told a panhandler to ”get a job.”
Gonzalez was with his brother, Jose, when three men asked for money.
”Why don`t you get a job?” said Gonzalez and he was shot.
Neighbor Rick Deruntz recalled the scene.
”Bernadino was face down,” he said. ”His brother was shaking him, trying to hold on to him, hugging him. He was devastated.”
Gonzalez, a Mexican immigrant, worked at La Margarita restaurant.
”When the band played, he`d always ask if he could join them,” said owner Doris Moran Smith. ”We should have let him, but he was in a busboy uniform and had work to do. Then, when the place was closing and empty, he`d sing. He had a beautiful voice.”
June 11-7:03 p.m. Lester Burrell, 28, was killed because he drank his uncle`s beer. He was felled by a shotgun blast at 6670 S. Michigan Ave. His uncle was charged with murder.
”My uncle drinks a lot and has a very, very quick temper,” said Patricia Watson, Burrell`s sister. ”He does things before he thinks.”
June 11-10:05 p.m. Steve Thurman, 26, was sitting in a car parked at 16 S. Central Ave. when a masked offender shot him once in the chest.
June 11-11:45 p.m. Robert Dingle, 18, died as violently as he lived, police said. He was out on bond on a murder charge when he was shot near 43rd Street and Cottage Grove Avenue.
June 12-2:30 a.m. William Harris, 25, died at the hands of his girlfriend`s other lover, who found them together, police said. ”He became enraged,” said Detective Daisey Martin. ”And the man was a karate expert.” She said the killer found Harris, of Bellwood, asleep in LaDonna Gray`s 14th-floor apartment at 4410 S. State St. ”He beat the victim senseless, and the victim got on the window ledge,” Martin said. Somehow, Harris plunged to his death.
June 12-12:30 p.m. Ulus Reese, 77, had $3,000 in cash, and the 16-year-old accused of his murder wanted to buy a motor scooter. The youth, a grandson of a friend of Reese, went to the victim`s apartment at 7046 S. Michigan Ave. Reese was stabbed and shot.
He once owned a produce business and later worked as a doorman, raising seven children, including Thomas, a Chicago police sergeant and 25-year veteran.
”He`s trying to keep Chicago safe for its citizens, and this happens to his own father,” said Reese`s daughter, Malika Maccabee.
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She recalled her father as ”very supportive, nurturing, caring, gentle. He was a very humble yet knowledgable man, mild-mannered. Firm but kind.”
June 12-8:30 p.m. Julian Sotello, 40, cooked dinner for a relative, dropped off a package of lightbulbs at his brother`s house and headed for his favorite bar. An $80 debt for narcotics caught up to him before he got there. He was smashed repeatedly in the head with bottles in the 2100 block of West Chicago Avenue.
June 12-11:22 p.m. Ralph Mayo, 24, was gunned down in a drive-by shooting in the 8100 block of South LaSalle Street.
June 12-11:30 p.m. Leo Chambers was in a dope house at 5235 W. Ohio St. when an acquaintance opened the door. Two unidentified men who were hiding in the bushes opened fire with 9 mm semiautomatic pistols. Chambers was riddled with bullets.
June 12-11:40 p.m. Cerricelle Brady, a jazz musician, was killed in the 1500 block of East 69th Street after he broke up a fight over a jacket. One of the participants came back with a gun.
”I drove up right after it happened,” said Brady`s twin brother, Marshaun Brady. ”I didn`t know why they were out there-police and yellow tape and all that stuff. I couldn`t believe it. I just started running wild. My friends had to grab me.”
”I know the dude who shot my brother,” Brady said. ”I knew him. I`d say, `What`s up, man?` We`d speak. That`s the part I can`t get over. Why would he shoot him? He just straight out killed him. That`s my twin. We were born together. And he killed him.”
June 12-11:47 p.m. Ernest Edwards, 28, died over a fender bender. A station wagon bumped into Edwards` new car in the 8600 block of South Laflin Street. Edwards got out and was shot.
The gunman then walked over to the 8th grader who was riding with Edwards and ordered him out of the car at gunpoint, said the boy`s mother, Edwards`
girlfriend. ”My son opened the door, ducked down and ran.
”He ran to a phone and called me. He said, `They killed him! They killed him!` I said, `Who?` He said, `They killed Ernest.` I dropped the phone and cried.”
The mother and the boy fear retaliation. ”He seems to be doing all right now,” she said. ”But I just have the feeling he`s going to crack up soon, because he`s holding it all in.”
June 13-2:50 a.m. Eric Franklin, 36, of 6310 S. Artesian Ave., was shot and the impact sent him flying out a window in a drug house at 319 W. Marquette Rd. He was dead when he hit the ground.
June 13-12:30 p.m. Sergio Cruz, of 5222 S. Fairfield Ave., who had turned 17 a day earlier, was in a car on his way home from Juarez High School when he died. Police say Alejandro Kader, who turned 17 the same day, pulled up beside him on a bicycle, exchanged gang signs with Cruz, and then shot him. Members of the Cruz family deny he was a gang member.