The last time Park Forest resident Tamieka Jones ever talked to her son, Pierre Buchanan, was at 12:47 p.m. July 2, the day he died. They talked about his daughter, Jones’ granddaughter, and about a recent meeting he’d had with his probation officer, she said.
“I hold the conversation to my heart,” Jones said. “He was like, ‘Ma, I love you, I just wanted to call and tell you I was thinking about you, I love you.'”
Jones was at work, she said, so she couldn’t talk for long. She said she’d call him back when she was off work.
“Then, at 1:09, I got a text message from his phone,” Jones said. “‘They shot Pierre in the head.'”
Buchanan, 32, was shot at 22nd Street and Union Avenue in Chicago Heights, and was pronounced dead at 1:50 p.m., according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office. His cause of death was listed as a gunshot wound to the head.
Jones said she’s been frustrated with the progress of the police investigation and with a lack of communication from law enforcement.
“They wouldn’t let me see my son. I didn’t see my son until I had to go to the medical office to do a positive identification,” Jones said. “So that’s it. They shot Pierre in the head. Who shot him? I don’t know.”
The Chicago Heights Police Department said in a July 2 news release that it was investigating, assisted by the South Suburban Major Crimes Task Force. Police said Friday the investigation was ongoing and that no additional information would be released at this time.
Jones described her son as generous, and said he had a “great big heart.” He’d been particularly close with his father, she said.
“Pierre was an uncle, a son, a dad, a cousin, a grandson, a nephew, a friend,” Jones said. “My heart is broken. His dad’s heart is broken. And we don’t know how to put the pieces back together.”
Buchanan had had issues with the law and with his temper, Jones said, but had been trying to get his life on track. He was unarmed when he was killed, she said.
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“I’d get on him. You need to get your life together, I need you to get your life together, you got your daughter you gotta take care of,” Jones said. “No matter how hard I came down on Pierre, he’d come back. ‘Ma, I love you. Ma, I’m sorry. I’m gonna get it together.'”
Jones said she had recently lost her father and her step-father in a short span of time to illness, but that the death of her son had been much harder to deal with.
“Pierre was taken from us,” Jones said. “God didn’t take Pierre’s life. A heartless person took Pierre’s life.”
Jones is planning to hold a prayer vigil on Oct. 2, the three-month anniversary of Buchanan’s death, at 22nd Street and Union Avenue in Chicago Heights, the intersection where he was shot.