More than 100 Evanston residents gathered Sunday evening at the corner of Dodge Avenue and Dempster Street to raise community awareness of youth violence following a juvenile shooting at the nearby McDonald’s two days earlier.
A 16-year-old male had sustained a single gunshot wound to his left midsection when Evanston police responded to the scene just after 4 p.m. Friday afternoon, according to an EPD news release issued later that night. The victim was then transported to Evanston Hospital, 2650 Ridge Ave., in serious condition. His current condition was unavailable at press time.
EPD Chief of Police Richard Eddington confirmed Sunday night an individual is in custody and charges have been approved. The suspect will most likely be tried in a Skokie courthouse this afternoon, Eddington said.
He added the impromptu rally’s turnout was a strong testament of local unity in the face of the daytime shooting.
“It’s the community saying they can’t – won’t – tolerate this type of conduct,” Eddington said.
The shooting occurred six days after a peace rally in the same area. Moms Saving Our Sons organized a march down Dodge Avenue on April 9 to protest the increased violence in the city and commemorated the lives of six young adults who fell victim to this violence.
“It really saddens me that there’s peace rallies and then there’s this violence,” Evanston resident Gwen Nyden said.
Sunday’s vigil gathering, spearheaded by the Heartwood Center, 1818 DempsterSt., stretched along the south curb of Dempster Street as participants displayed anti-violence message boards and waved peace signs for passing drivers. Stopped cars at the adjacent intersection exchanged approving honks and asked through rolled-down windows if they could join the peaceful demonstration.
Dickelle Fonda, a local social worker and event organizer, described the sunset rally as a “very organic and spontaneous” meeting. The shooting at the McDonald’s, located about a mile and a half from Northwestern’s campus at 1919 Dempster Ave., was “traumatic at many levels” and has forever altered the lives of those involved, she said.
“We felt that an appropriate response was to give people an opportunity to stand out in solidarity,” Fonda added.
Throughout the ad hoc assembly, rally participants expressed both grief and exasperation with what they view as escalating gang activity on Evanston’s west side.
“I was just disturbed by the violence,” said Nyden, referring to her inspiration to attend. “We just need to stand up and say enough is enough.”
Other attendees echoed her inherent frustration, with one circle of rally attendees discussing the lack of “innovative ideas” in squashing hostility among the city’s minority youth. Their qualms centered on two subjects that dominated other curbside conversations: gun control and public information.
The latter aspect especially ruffled Evanston resident Monica Garcia, who decried news outlets’ reluctance to cover recent incidents in the west-end neighborhoods surrounding Evanston Township High School, which is located one block from the shooting. She said area residents “hear more about sex toys at Northwestern” than the social issues plaguing students’ daily lives.
“My boys are going to be there at ETHS next year and – either way – all kids are our kids,” Garcia said.
She added that Friday’s robo-call warning ETHS parents of the McDonald’s shooting was “absolutely” a step in the right direction for public awareness.
But both Eddington and other rally participants agreed that authorities and neighbors must play a dual role in curbing illegal firearm use. Eddington repeated to several members of the media present at the event that residents should examine the “precursor decisions” that motivate a teenager to carry a gun.
“We’ll solve the crime, but the community has to fix the problem,” he said.
Rally attendee and former law enforcement official Steve Delanty elaborated on Eddington’s advice, urging community members to “come out and recognize” obvious problems.
“The proliferation of illegal guns means it can happen anytime and anywhere,” he said. “We have to get to a point of zero tolerance.”
Yet that very attitude was absent in a young Evanston resident walking outside ETHS Sunday afternoon. The boy described the adolescent’s shooting as a “kind of usual crime.” He added he was definitely familiar with Friday’s incident and heard it was gang-related from multiple friends.
“I didn’t really find it shocking,” the boy said. “I used to live on the south side and that happened all the time.”
ETHS senior and rally participant Grace Kaminski acknowledged the perceived normality of teenage animosity in west-end neighborhoods. She said she first learned of the incident via Facebook postings that proved “how Evanston fulfills its stereotype of being ghetto.”
While the community gathering unraveled across the street, Burger King shift manager Reyna Francisco recalled her experience Friday evening, when the nearby fast food restaurant was flooded with fleeing McDonald’s customers. She said one boy who arrived from McDonald’s had claimed to witness the actual shooting.
“He said [the victim] was holding where he got shot,” she said. “He was like, ‘Oh, we just got out of there.’ He was very scared.”
