An outdoor meeting to discuss recent incidents of violence in south Evanston was interrupted Saturday night by a familiar sound: gunshots.
Residents yelled in surprise as several police officers sprinted to their cars and took off in the direction of the shots.
Remaining officers soon reported one person had been injured in a shooting just three blocks away. The next morning, the victim was reported dead by several TV stations.
“This is why we need to band together,” said Evanston Deputy Police Chief Demitrous Cook after the shots were heard. “This is what we got to do.”
The meeting, held at Evanston’s Elks Park, was a chance for residents to meet with police in the wake of two shootings and at least eight citizen reports of gunshots in the past week.
Two nights earlier, Cori Ellis had heard the shots from one of the shootings while she was watching TV in her south Evanston apartment.
“When you see a shooting from your window, you’re going to attend a meeting,” said Ellis, one of about 75 people to come to the meeting, including Ald. Ann Rainey (8th), Cook and several other officers. Rainey declined to comment.
The police started the meeting by giving details about the area situation.
“We feel there might be some tension between two gangs and that might be related to the shootings,” said Sgt. Jason Parrott. “There are some problems that are going on down here, we are aware of them, and we’re trying to address them.”
Police also announced the assignment of a new four-officer tactical unit to the area, starting Friday.
But the hour-and-15-minute meeting quickly turned into a question-and-answer session for citizens wanting to know what the police were doing to address the problems and what the community can do to help. Cook fielded questions ranging from response procedure for 911 calls to if the police were working with area schools to reduce gang activity.
Some of the residents said they were not satisfied with the responses from the police.
“It sounded to me like no matter what the questions were, there were already stock answers that were going to be given,” said Ellis, a coach of Northwestern’s speech and debate team. “I wasn’t really impressed.”
The meeting had at least one tense moment when 45-year-old resident Holly Gonzalez asked how many times each day police check a video camera set up on a problem intersection.
When Cook responded that the camera is checked once a week, Gonzalez said, “Don’t you think you should try seeing it like every couple days so you know exactly what’s going on?”
The deputy chief immediately told the residents he did know exactly what was going on in the area, adding “We want to work with you, not against you.”
The citizens said they were eager to work the police, but just didn’t know what to do.
“I heard the shots fired last Wednesday and what I don’t want to hear is that a young man of our community is dead,” said 60-year-old Bruce Gaede, who attended the meeting. “I don’t know what I can do, but we got to do something before something worse happens.”
At a meeting where frustrations were evident, some residents were optimistic that they could do something to help the situation.
Angela Malone, 36, said the problems could be reduced if the community came together.
“If it’s just me out here, yeah, I’m not going to do much,” she said. “If I have 10 other homeowners with me, that’s going to make a difference.”
