CHICAGO (AP) — A dispute over shoes led to the fatal shooting of the grandson of Illinois U.S. Rep. Danny Davis, Chicago police said Saturday.
At least two attackers went to the home of 15-year-old Jovan Wilson in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago on Friday night and shot him in the head after an argument, police said.
“This stems from a dispute over shoes, basketball shoes,” police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said.
Guglielmi said Wilson knew his attackers and they may have been friends at some point. The shooting was not, as previously reported, a home invasion.
“Young people are using guns to settle petty disputes over clothes,” Guglielmi said.
Chicago has seen a dramatic rise in the number of shootings and homicides, with August being the deadliest month in the city in two decades. There have been 673 homicides so far this year, including the fatal shootings of the cousin of Chicago Bull Dwyane Wade, a Chicago police officer’s son and the son of a famed percussionist.
Davis said in a statement that Wilson’s mother was not at home, but Wilson’s uncle and three siblings were.
“I grieve for my family. I grieve for the young man who pulled the trigger,” Davis said in a statement. “I grieve for his family, his parents, his friends.”
Police have not arrested anyone or named any suspects, but Guglielmi said investigators have good leads.
Davis, who was re-elected this month to his 11th term in the 7th Congressional District and is a former Chicago alderman, was in Chicago on Friday and spoke with reporters after talking to police. He wondered how the shooter obtained the gun and said he’d continue to try to combat gun violence.
Davis described his grandson to the newspaper as a “typical 15-year-old” who liked music and basketball, someone who “knew all about … the stats of different players.” But Davis also said he recognized that Chicago’s violence problem could affect his family.
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The kid had a gun because it’s just as easy to get one in Chicago as it is to get a piece of pizza. He shot the Congressman’s grandson because he’s another kid lost to inner city “gangsta” crap. Unfortunately the Congressman’s kid, the parent of the dead child, failed to keep the young boy from that culture.
This is 1 + 1 = 2 in Chicago. Anyone can do the math and we all know what the answer is.
This is really sad! Once again, a gun has caused the death of an innocent child. How much longer do we have to live like this?
Do you know anything about this kid? Or are you just indulging yourself in knee jerk stereotyping?
Jazz musician Famadou Don Moye’s son was killed a couple of weeks ago in a random drive-by shooting, also on the south side.
There are stories behind these kids deaths. They are people, who live in communities that are under stress, and a lot of that stress in government neglect, from a lack of gun control, rotting infrastructure, underfunded schools which have become hobbies of oligarchs, no work, ad nauseam. Just laying the blame on gang culture is a cop out.
And yes, guns are easy to get. They mostly come from Indiana, where you can buy a gun from an unlicensed dealer at a “gun show”. Pence will make your town just as gun friendly.
Danny Davis is my congressman. My condolences to him and his family.
ETA: @richardinjax - I do apologize for misreading your original post. I read cursorily, and thought you were referring to the victim, and not the shooter, which was your subject.
But that doesn’t change the fact that you do pronounce that the kids father failed him without knowing any facts about the virctim and his famitly
Or that you make lofty pronoucements about the crime because “Chicago” :
No, Chicago is not singular, and crimes like this aren’t inevitable because “Chicago”. We as a country, along with the state and city, have failed this “Chicago”. And that 15 year old kid who shot him was a victim as well, unless you think that a 15 year old with an unformed brain growing up in a fucked up world is as responsible as an adult.
I suppose Carlos we could ask the same of you and why you feel your words are more advised than mine? I really don’t know this kid nor did I say I did. Nor do you. What I’m talking about is a situation in which a 15 year old kid home invaded another kids place and shot that kid in the head. Are we to believe he’s just another Kid in America? Or is he a Chi Town punk ( and yes I do know about those ) caught up in a life style that makes Chicago the murder capitol of America?
Tell me?
A 15 year old kid shot another kid in the head during a fucking home invasion ( how many first degree felonies in that one ) and you want to blame that crap on Pence? You want to say these kids take a long drive to an Indiana gun show when the weapons they want are sold on their streets 1/2 block away? I don’t think your goody two shoes analysis of this has a leg to stand on and I think it perpetuates it and will get more kids killed.
That’s stupid. You made an assumption about this case; I didn’t. The rest of my comment was responding to your stereotyping.