Like many other youngsters her age, 10-year-old Shannon Burns was fighting a losing battle with the neighborhood bullies. She was fed up.
So on Friday, the pony-tailed tomboy loaded her mother’s .32 revolver with a bullet and stuck it in the waistband of her jeans, ready to face her tormentors. Then she dashed out to the corner store with her buddy, 12-year-old Tyrone Wilson, to buy some caramel candy.
Two hours later, Shannon lay bleeding on the floor of a neighbor’s South Side apartment. She had been shot in the head with the gun, authorities said, by her 14-year-old best friend in what police allege was a bizarre twist of Russian roulette.
“Shannon told (the 14-year-old girl), `Why don’t you stop playing with the gun before one of us gets hurt with it?’ ” Tyrone recalled Saturday. “I was scared. I was saying to myself, `I hope the gun doesn’t go off.’ We told her to stop playing. She (pointed the gun at Shannon’s head and) clicked the gun two times. The third time, the gun went off.
“Shannon fell over. (Her friend) was saying, `Shannon, please say something.’ But Shannon didn’t say anything.”
Shannon was pronounced dead at the University of Chicago Wyler Children’s Hospital Friday evening. She was the 45th child 14 or younger to be slain in the Chicago area in 1993.
She was also the 20th child to die this year of gunshot wounds.
The 14-year-old, who was to be a South Shore High School freshman, was charged with first-degree murder in a juvenile petition, according to Nina Cadsawan, a spokeswoman for the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office. Police said the girl told them that she did not mean to kill Shannon.
On Saturday, the 14-year-old was being held in solitary confinement in the Audy Juvenile Detention Center, according to her mother.
The girl, whose name was being withheld because she is a juvenile, is scheduled for a hearing in Cook County Juvenile Court Tuesday, when a judge could decide if she should be tried as an adult, Cadsawan said.
“(The 14-year-old) thought that a single bullet was in the bottom of the cylinder,” said Pullman Area Violent Crimes Sgt. Henry Crump. “It’s terrible. You wonder why a mother would have a gun where a 10-year-old could get it.”
About the same time Shannon was shot, 13-year-old Latasha Sawyer was shot in the neck, authorities said, by a 12-year-old friend while she played video games at a South Side birthday party.
But Sawyer was lucky: She survived. On Saturday, she was listed in fair condition at Wyler Children’s Hospital.
Police were questioning Latasha’s friend Saturday. They said they did not know whether the shooting was accidental or how she got the gun.
As of late Saturday, police had filed no charges in the shooting.
Both shootings underscored the ease with which children in many neighborhoods can get guns.
“It’s too easy to get a gun,” said Latasha’s mother, Patricia. “They can get a gun faster than a pair of shoes.”
And too often a handgun is the weapon of choice for settling squabbles-even for a 10-year-old girl eager to show the local bully who’s boss.
“When I left my house, there wasn’t a gun in my house,” said Tjwana Stewart, 27, who said she had left her four children, ages 9, 7, 4 and 1, in the care of her 14-year-old sister, who is charged in Shannon’s death. Shannon lived in the second-floor apartment above Stewart’s apartment.
“When you have a 10-year-old going to get knives and guns, something is wrong,” said Stewart, who worked the afternoon shift at a beauty supply store.
Authorities said they did not know how Shannon found the gun her mother had hidden. Her mother, who is a registered nurse at St. Bernard Hospital, could not be reached on Saturday.
Shannon was an only child. At some moments, she could be a hot-tempered tomboy enthralled with four-letter words, daredevil swingset stunts, and lately, friends said, guns and knives. Other times the bright preteen, who was a bit small for her age, took it upon herself to scrub the shabby hallways of the Woodlawn six-flat where she lived with her mother.
“Her mother did a good job raising her as a single parent,” said Teritha Reyes, 22, Shannon’s downstairs neighbor.
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“This was a child’s life taken,” said another neighbor, James Hawk, who administered first aid to Shannon before an ambulance arrived. “We’ll never know what she could have turned out to be. She could have been the first black female president.”
Shannon’s troubles with the bullies down the block had been brewing for several weeks, according to her friend, Tyrone. The boys, two preteen brothers, frequently beat up younger kids, he said.
Saturday morning, Tyrone said, the boys upped the ante, brandishing a gun-maybe a BB gun-in front of Shannon and the other youngsters, police said. Later, as the children watched T.V. in Tjwana Stewart’s first-floor apartment, the bullies banged on the door, yelling threats at them, Tyrone said.
“Shannon said, `I’m getting tired of them. I’m going to get my gun,’ ” Tyrone recalled Saturday afternoon. “We told her to leave it upstairs.”
But Shannon was too angry to back down, Tyrone said. After she loaded the gun, she persuaded Tyrone to go with her to the candy store. On the way, Tyrone rode his bike alongside Shannon and tried to calm her down.
“She said, `If he comes in my face, I’m going to shoot him,’ ” Tyrone said softly. “I asked her if it was loaded. She said, `Yeah, I wasn’t going to come out with it unloaded.”‘
They ran into the boys on the street. Shannon pointed her gun at the bullies. They pointed their gun at her. She ran.
Back at Stewart’s apartment, Tyrone said, a somewhat subdued Shannon put the gun on top of the television set. Her 14-year-old friend picked up the gun.
After the shot rang out, when the 14-year-old realized Shannon was dead, she cried, Tyrone said.
“She said she wanted to go to the funeral,” the 14-year-old’s mother said. “I just looked at her and said, `I don’t think that’s a good idea.’ “