Kids in powder blue polos and navy blue pants and sweaters chased each other over red and green and blue slides and bridges in the playlot outside Frazier International Magnet Elementary School just after 11 a.m. Wednesday.
At 11:02 a.m. Tuesday, a Harrison District tactical sergeant heard gunfire here and used his radio to alert the district.
“Gunfire going on, 4000 block of Grenshaw, I can’t see, you got people running but I can’t see who’s shootin.”
“Frazier’s calling it in, they heard 10 to 20 shots fired outside the school,” the dispatcher said. “There’s a black SUV parked in front, unknown if they’re involved.”
Within a minute or so police found 34-year-old man Jonathan Green dead from gunshot wounds. The dispatcher asked the sergeant who heard the gunfire and found the man if he saw the black SUV.
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“I’m not looking squad, ’cause I’m over with the body right now ’cause there’s a crowd gathering,” the sergeant said.
The victim fell next to the play lot. He was dead there but an ambulance took him to the hospital because of a gathering crowd.
Every day students come out here to play, separated by age, the young ones first and older kids later on. Had this happened a few minutes later, the youngest of the students would have seen the killing or worse.
“Make sure someone gets in touch with the school here, lets ’em know the kids aren’t coming out for recess,” the sergeant said Tuesday.
“Let ’em know they aren’t coming out for recess,” the dispatcher said to the district’s schools sergeant, who was just arriving to the scene. “Got a bonafide DOA out there.”
The kids stayed inside while detectives worked and police stretched tape from the fence that enclosed their playground to fences across the street. Grenshaw Street was closed Tuesday, from Pulaski to the scene, and all of Karlov from just north of Grenshaw down to Roosevelt.
But at 11:05 a.m. Wednesday, a teacher walked the students out as the same district schools sergeant sat parked, waving at the little ones who waved at her and hi-fiving them through the fence.
“So these kids can have recess,” the schools sergeant told her dispatcher.
The Chicago Police Department was made aware of the sergeant visiting the school before she arrived and declined to allow any of its officers to speak for this story.
Chicago Public Schools, on the day of the homicide and on the day after, did not return messages seeking comment, either.
Other police cars were in the area, circling the school and the blocks nearby.
From across the street, an older woman in a purple dress sat on her front porch enjoying the breeze and the warm weather.
“They should be able to play out here,” she said. She asked that her name not be used. She has to live here, she said.
“It helps the kid burn off some of that energy and it helps the teachers too,” she said. “They need better conditions but what’re you gonna do? We live in an area where you have to be careful.”
The students aren’t out long each day. Fifteen or twenty minutes at a time, separated by age.
“Those little people deserve a chance,” she said.
A garbage truck drove by and honked at the kids playing. A Streets and San worker hanging off the back waved.
At 11:15 a.m., as the kids were playing outside, two 16-year-olds were shot three blocks away. The sergeant didn’t move her car, and the Frazier kids still played. One of the two teens shot suffered serious wounds, with both treated at Mount Sinai Hospital.
“They shouldn’t have to be here but it’s a good thing they (are),” the woman said. “But how long are they going to do that?”
Within minutes a news helicopter chopped overhead for the shooting blocks away. The sound of helicopters here, news or police, is constant, the woman said.
“See that?” she asked. “That’s how we live.”
By 12:40, the school had finished recess. Officers guarded the shooting scene nearby, and the schools sergeant pulled away.
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