CHICAGO — Nearly 200 juveniles have been shot so far this year in Chicago, according to police statistics.
The startling stat has some parents calling for peace as others demand action from city hall.
On Wednesday, a new mural was unveiled at the Bloomingdale Trail in Logan Square to honor Neftali Reyes Jr. and more than a dozen other young murder victims.
So far in 2021, there have been 196 shooting victims 17 and younger.
“Get involved. Just because it hasn’t hit home doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get involved. It doesn’t mean you should keep your blinds closed. Get involved in your community,” a victim’s mother Elizabeth Ramirez said. “We’re losing more and more children – younger and younger kids to the violence. A bullet doesn’t have a name, and it doesn’t have an age.”
Ramirez’s son, Harry David Rodriguez, who was a running back on the Mather High School football team, was shot and killed at his own birthday party.
“Someone came into the back with ski mask, started shooting – not directly at my son – but started shooting, but my son gave his life for his cousin’s life. He pushed him back,” Ramirez said. “He was shot and killed.”
After news Tuesday that a 2-year-old boy was critically wounded in a Humboldt Park double shooting, she decided to organize a peach march at city hall Thursday.
