Siblings Alonzo and Suzette Coleman spent Wednesday afternoon excitedly planning a huge gathering of their family on Christmas.
They talked about what they were going to make: “turkey, dressing, pies, greens, the works,” said Alonzo Coleman. Enough to serve the dozens of relatives and friends.
Most years, the brother and sister, who live across the street from each other in the 1300 block of South Millard Avenue, would have separate Christmas dinners, and guests would cross the street to get a taste of both.
This year’s celebration would be the first time in nearly 10 years that the whole family would be together under one roof, said Alonzo Coleman, 51.
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But anticipation turned to sorrow that afternoon, after Suzette Coleman, 45, a letter carrier and mother of seven children, was fatally shot in front of her home.
Police said it appeared that Coleman was an innocent bystander caught in crossfire.
“It’s eating me up on the inside,” said Alonzo Coleman. “I haven’t had any sleep. … I just see her lying there.”
He and his sister had just returned from a nearby grocery store at about 3:15 p.m., he said. He went to the first-floor apartment he shares with their mother and only after a neighbor’s frantic phone call minutes later did he learn that Suzette had been shot.
Alonzo Coleman ran out the front door and saw his sister’s body lying in the street, blood streaming from her head. He said he tried desperately to reach her side, but police, who arrived on the scene just after the shooting, kept him at bay.
Neighbors had said they saw two men shooting at each other when Suzette Coleman was shot, although police could not confirm this.
“I got hysterical,” Alonzo Coleman said. “I was screaming, `That’s my sister, that’s my sister.'”
On Thursday, a steady stream of mourners visited the ground-floor apartment Suzette Coleman shared with her children, then went to her mother’s and brother’s apartment across the street.
Pilar Williams and her 7-year-old son were paying their respects. But Williams, 25, a close family friend who met Suzette Coleman 10 years ago and once dated one of her sons, was also angry.
“This is senseless violence,” she said. Those who did this are “hardcore, ruthless individuals. They do not care who they kill–mother, children, babies.”
Family members said the crack of gunfire is not an unfamiliar sound in the neighborhood and that gangs maintain a presence in the neighborhood.
Ogden Police District Cmdr. Beatrice Cuello said activity between two gangs has been reported a couple of blocks to the east of Coleman’s home.
“This shooting occurred on what is a fairly quiet block,” said Cuello, who added that police are still investigating and it is too early to say if the shooting was gang-related.
Suzette Coleman had worked for the Postal Service for 12 years, said spokesman Tim Ratliff. Many of the people who knew her and worked with her at the branch at 358 W. Van Buren St. found out about the slaying through news reports Thursday morning, he said.
As employees clocked in for the morning shift, there was a moment of silence for Coleman, Ratliff said.
“The Postal Service is really a family that watches out, that looks out for one another,” Ratliff said. “Our heartfelt condolences certainly are extended to the Coleman family at this time.”
On Thursday, family members watched in silence during a television news report about the slaying.
Coleman’s stepdaughter, Shantel Valentine, 31, sat on the floor in her mother’s living room. A plastic Christmas tree stood nearby, shiny gold-colored balls dangling from its boughs.
“All I know is someone shot and killed my mom in the street,” she said bitterly. “I’m OK. … I got to be strong,” she said.
Valentine said her mother was a sweet, outgoing woman who loved children–her own, her relatives’ and those from the neighborhood. She often invited them into her home if they needed a place to stay for a while, Valentine said.
And if visitors were lucky enough to come at mealtimes, they would have a plate of food in their hands before long, she said.
Goddaughter Ann Glover, 34, called Coleman “the backbone of the family.”
“She was my very best friend, my aunty,” said Glover. “If you needed something she’d be there for you.”
She recalled living with Coleman for time when she was a teenager and Coleman teaching her how to cook.
“Every soul food meal, she could cook,” Glover said. “Collard greens, string beans, baked fish.”
Coleman’s death was still unfathomable for her.
“A lot of us are not accepting it,” Glover said. “It’s like she’s still at work right now.”
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Neighbors said Coleman, whose family has lived on the block for more than 40 years, also cared about the welfare of her neighborhood. She was one of the chief organizers of neighborhood events that drew people from blocks around, they said.
The family moved to Chicago in 1960 from Cleveland and settled in the neighborhood a year later, said Alonzo Coleman.
Leroy Stewart, 58, said he lived a block from Suzette Coleman since he was a teenager and had known her “since she was about 5 years old” and affectionately called her “sweetheart.”
Another neighbor, who would only give her name as Rev. Fowler, called Coleman “a soldier to the end” for the way she took care of her infirm mother, Martha Coleman, 78.
“She got home from work and she would take her mom to the store, to the doctor,” Fowler said. “She was doing good deeds even to the end.”
Alonzo Coleman said his family is still reeling from the loss. But despite their grief, he plans to have the Christmas dinner in his sister’s memory.
“She probably would’ve wanted it that way,” he said.
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