Recent gang gunfire outside an elementary school in the Lawndale neighborhood led the Chicago Board of Education on Thursday to intensify security at seven schools and prompted elected leaders to begin mobilizing residents to fight violence.
While police still searched for suspects in the fatal shooting of an 18-year-old man behind Penn Elementary School a week ago, several aldermen, community leaders and church pastors gathered in the rain outside Penn to denounce escalating gang warfare, drug dealing and crime in the neighborhood.
The school district dispatched at least two extra off-duty police officers to Penn and to nearby Dvorak, Mason and Herzl Elementary Schools earlier this week and to Collins High on Thursday. The system plans to send two more off-duty officers each to Henson and Howland Elementary Schools, schools chief Paul Vallas said.
Each of those seven schools will also receive three to five youth outreach workers as backup security.
Thursday’s gathering of dozens of residents and politicians resulted in an agreement to try to work together against violence. A community meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. Monday in Clair Christian United Methodist Church, 3956 W. 14th St.
On Sept. 29, gang gunfire outside Penn killed Antonio Allen, 18, and wounded another male, according to police. The shooting forced pupils to retreat back into the school.
Shortly before the shootings, reputed gang leader Elbert Mahone, 39, was kidnapped one block from the school and later was found with fatal gunshot wounds in the 2600 block of South Komensky Avenue, police said.
After the last school bell rang Thursday, several pupils walking home from Penn, at 1616 S. Avers Ave., said they have been uneasy all week.
More Top Picks Best White Noise Machines For Adults
“I’m scared they might come to school and start shooting,” one girl said.
Another girl said many of her schoolmates have been talking about the violence. “Why are they shooting?” she asked. “I want them to quit because people get scared too much.”
Mayor Richard Daley on Thursday scoffed at the notion of a negotiated truce between gangs, a suggestion initiated by some community leaders. The key to maintaining peace is locking up the gangbangers, he said.
“Let’s arrest them and prosecute them and put them in jail for the rest of their lives. These are very dangerous people. Anybody who takes a gun and shoots when kids are walking down the street, they are very dangerous people,” Daley said.
Police said they plan to send squad cars Friday to patrol the funeral of a member of a gang that is believed to have been involved in last week’s shootings.