For eight years, Sabrina Harris said she has gotten word through the community grapevine about the two boys who were wrongly accused of killing her daughter Ryan.
She said she wouldn’t hear much about one of the boys. But of the other, Romarr Gipson, she said she would get stopped by people familiar with her daughter’s case who were eager to inform her about Gipson’s run-ins with the law. So when a friend told her Saturday that Gipson was implicated in a shooting, she said she wasn’t surprised.
“They say that the police have made him that way,” Harris said. “I don’t feel that way. [The boys] were both accused of the same crime, and you don’t read about the other boy. You can’t say it is because of what happened eight years ago.”
On Sunday, Cook County Circuit Judge Frank Castiglione ordered Gipson held in lieu of $500,000 bail in a double shooting at a Calumet Park gas station.
Gipson’s stepbrother, Roman Foreman, also was being held on $500,000 bail, charged with the same crime as Gipson, aggravated battery with a firearm.
Gipson, 15, is being charged as an adult in the shootings that took place Wednesday afternoon at the Citgo Gas Station, 12304 S. Halsted St.
Gipson was 7 when he and an 8-year-old boy were charged with the murder of Ryan Harris, 11, who was found raped and suffocated in Englewood.
In August 1998, the boys became the youngest people in the U.S. ever charged with murder. A month later, the boys were exonerated. Eventually, the boys’ families settled their lawsuits against the city. Gipson’s family settled for $2 million, which city attorneys said is an annuity paid out over a number of years.
When he was 14, Gipson was charged as a juvenile in the accidental shooting of a 15-year-old friend. He was placed on electronic home monitoring.
Prosecutors alleged Sunday that Gipson and Foreman shot the two men while the victims were in a car.
The victims had just finished getting gas when Gipson and Foreman approached and shot at them, said Assistant State’s Atty. Michael O’Brien.
The driver was shot in the thigh and was treated and released. The passenger was hit in a kidney. He is in critical condition at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn.
Gipson and Foreman fled in a third person’s car after Foreman ditched the guns, O’Brien said. Calumet Park police were close by and pursued the car. Later, investigators interviewed the third person, who identified both Gipson and Foreman as the shooters.
The third person has not been charged
The incident was videotaped by security cameras, O’Brien said.
The two boys were represented in court by a public defender, who provided few details about their lives.
Gipson lives with his mother in the 10700 block of South King Drive and recently finished 10th grade.
Foreman is seeking his GED at Olive-Harvey College and has a 7-month-old child.
No one answered the door at Gipson’s home on Sunday.
According to the Gipson family’s lawsuit against the city in the Harris case, family members sought psychological help for the boy and themselves, and Gipson underwent treatment for separation anxiety disorder, depression, sleep difficulties, self-hatred and over-dependency on his parents.
Jan Susler of the People’s Law Office, which represented Gipson in his civil suit against the city, said Saturday that he still has a host of psychological issues and is enrolled in private therapy-based school.
Sabrina Harris said Sunday she is sympathetic to the trauma that Gipson has suffered. She said she wants Gipson to stop blaming his problems on his past experience with police.
“If you are scared of law enforcement and angry, that means you would stay away from law enforcement,” she said. Harris said she had faith in both boys, refusing to believe that they were capable of killing her daughter. She said she had hoped that the boys would take the settlement money and make new and better lives for themselves.
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“This $2 million gave [Gipson] the chance to change [his] life,” she said.
“They say the police are destined to get our young black boys, and at times I feel that way. They saw a killer and he had an opportunity to show them that that is not [him],” Harris said. “He could have shown everyone, me. When it comes to him, it looks like the cops still won.”
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Gipson’s legal history
1998
July 28: Ryan Harris, 11, is found dead on South Parnell Avenue in Englewood. Her body shows signs of sexual abuse.
Aug. 9: While being questioned by police, Gipson, 7, and another boy, 8, allegedly implicate themselves in Harris’ slaying.
Sept. 4: A judge dismisses the case against the boys after determining it was unlikely they produced the semen found on Harris` underwear.
Week of Sept. 14: After comparing the semen on Harris’ underwear with a DNA database, police question Floyd Durr about the Harris case.
1999
April 22: Floyd Durr is charged with murdering Harris.
May 17: Gipson’s parents file a suit against the city for malicious prosecution and inflicting emotional stress.
2004
Sept. 3: Gipson, now 14, is placed on electronic home monitoring after being arrested for accidentally shooting a friend.
Oct. 19: Gipson’s family settles with the city for $2 million.
2006
April 10: Durr is sentenced to life in prison for Harris’ murder. Saturday: Gipson, now 15, and his older stepbrother are charged with shooting two men in Calumet Park on Wednesday.
Source: Tribune reports
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