Teen performer at inaugural events fatally shot

[tony357 386]

http://xfinity.comcast.net/articles/news-national/20130130/US.Chicago.Violence.Inauguration.Performer/

 

CHICAGO — A 15-year-old girl who had performed in President Barack Obama's inauguration festivities is the latest face on the ever-increasing homicide toll in the president's hometown, killed in a Chicago park as she talked with friends by a gunman who apparently was not even aiming at her.

Chicago police said Hadiya Pendleton was in a park about a mile from Obama's home in a South Side neighborhood Tuesday afternoon when a man opened fire on the group. Hadiya was shot in the back as she tried to escape.

The city's 42nd slaying is part of Chicago's bloodiest January in more than a decade, following on the heels of 2012, which ended with more than 500 homicides for the first time since 2008. It also comes at a time when Obama, spurred by the Connecticut elementary school massacre in December, is actively pushing for tougher gun laws.

Hadiya's father, Nathaniel Pendleton, spoke Wednesday at a Chicago police news conference, which was held in the same park where his daughter died.

"He took the light of my life," Pendleton said. He then spoke directly to the killer: "Look at yourself, just know that you took a bright person, an innocent person, a nonviolent person." Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy consoled him, the girl's mother and 10-year-old brother.

Hadiya was a bright kid who was killed just as she was "wondering about which lofty goal she wanted to achieve," her godfather, Damon Stewart, told The Associated Press. Hadiya had been a majorette with the King College Prep band.

"She was a very active kid, doing dance, cheerleading, who felt like she could accomplish just about anything, a very good student who had big dreams about what she wanted to be, a doctor, an attorney," said Stewart, a Chicago police officer and attorney. "She was constantly getting good grades."

Obama was asked about Hadiya's death in an interview with Telemundo, which led to a discussion about gun control. Also Wednesday, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Wednesday that the president and the first lady's "thoughts and prayers are with" the teen's family, adding: "And as the president has said, we will never be able to eradicate every act of evil in this country, but if we can save any one child's life, we have an obligation to try when it comes to the scourge of gun violence."

In Chicago, gangs routinely and often indiscriminately open fire. Mayor Rahm Emanuel and McCarthy are pushing for tougher local, state and national gun laws and longer prison sentences for offenders.

About three blocks from Hadiya's school, she and a group of 10-12 young people, including members of her volleyball team, had taken refuge under a canopy at a park to avoid the rain Tuesday afternoon. A man climbed a fence behind the park, ran at the group and started shooting, and then jumped back over the fence and into a white Nissan. The group scattered, but Hadiya was shot once in the back and a teenage boy was shot in the leg.

Police said Hadiya had no arrest record and there was no indication she was a member of a gang or was the gunman's target. In fact, McCarthy said there are no indications that anyone in the group was gang-affiliated. He said the police suspect that the gunman may be a member of a gang that considers the park its turf and that he mistook somebody in the group as someone from an encroaching rival gang.

McCarthy vowed to put a police officer at the park "24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year" if that is what it takes to show the gang that the park belongs to no one but the community.

Comments by both Stewart and the girl's father echo the message that city officials have long said: Gun violence is not confined to street corners in dangerous neighborhoods. Obama's neighborhood, Kenwood, is just north of the University of Chicago and the Museum of Science and Industry.

"Her parents had done everything right and she was doing everything right," he said. Stewart, who was 12 when his own brother was shot and killed, said his family and Pendleton's family were so close that his own children saw the 15-year-old as an older sister.

"The worst thing in the world was when yesterday I had to sit there and tell my children that their sister is gone," he said.

___

AP reporter Nedra Pickler contributed to this report from Washington.

[Handyman 5,682]

Impossible. Chicago has some of the "best" gun laws in the nation.

[twong11219 0]

I can't believe this, of all people. What a coincidence that it's happening during the peak of this fiasco. Let everyone carry and see what happens.

[so_dank 0]

How about use some of this money were wasting on gun control debates institute the larger gang task force our country has ever seen and start knocking heads.

 

America protecting the criminals with laws making criminals a out of the loyal. There's a sign slogan.

Sad about the child though

[HODGIE 3]

How about we ban gangs, gang life and gang activity!

[so_dank 0]

More people are killed and wounded by gang activity than mentally ill people I'd have to believe. If you want I can go politician mode and say 70 percent more;)

[so_dank 0]

Harsher penalties please.. if you can go to war after the age of 18 I assume you should know right from wrong. Age 18 + with crimes that endanger and violate others should be heavily sentenced. These gang members are not stealing bread to feed families, there making families to feed there wallet. There's an obvious line between criminal and survival.

[e80hydro 120]

"mistook somebody in the group as someone from an encroaching rival gang".

 

These gang bangers need to get their shit together and stop mistooking.

[Silent Service 7]

How about use some of this money were wasting on gun control debates institute the larger gang task force our country has ever seen and start knocking heads.

 

America protecting the criminals with laws making criminals a out of the loyal. There's a sign slogan.

Sad about the child though

How about we ban gangs, gang life and gang activity!

 

TINFOIL HAT.........ON

 

How do we know it was gangbangers? There are no eyewitness accusations as to who the shooter was, just standard speculation by the police.

 

My tinfoil hat theory is that this is not a coincidence and somebody whacked her to further their agenda or to make a point. Is it "O's" boys that will stop at no cost to see that their gungrabbing agenda is further backed by the general populous? Maybe a NWO hit squad to again further fan the anti's flame.

 

If truth is stranger than fiction, well.....

 

TIN FOIL HAT............OFF

 

#1 on the list of bad shit that can happen to you is what happened to this girls parents. The loss of a child. My sincerest condolances go out to the family.

[Shocker 151]

These gang bangers need to get their shit together and stop mistooking.

 

Wouldn't matter since they don't seem to aim

[Parker 213]

Chicago doesn't sound like a safe place to raise kids when in the wrong neighborhoods.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/01/27/chicago-woman-loses-her-4th-child-to-gun-violence-i-have-nobody-right-now/

[BOOMSTICK 6]

Wouldn't matter since they don't seem to aim

 

Sure they do! they put the sites on the side of the slide instead! (someone help me out with the pic of that. I know someone has to have it)

[RedBowTies88 41]

I bet the perp shot just like this

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYvsWo0uu8o

[twong11219 0]

Another life lost to acts of violence is saddening. Later reports are probably going to say the culprit was a legal owner and member of the NRA using an AR-type "assault rifle" with Beta mags. Don't all gang bangers carry them concealed everywhere they go? It's so easy to hide them under their bandanas.

[Silent Service 7]

I bet the perp shot just like this

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYvsWo0uu8o

 

ROFLMAO!!!!

[olderguy 0]

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2006/08/22/sideways_gun_sight.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.waltherforums.com/forum/gear-gadgets-tactics-training/16944-halo-luminous-sight-makes-using-sights-moot-cq-distances.html&h=605&w=480&sz=87&tbnid=GJzABup_M2MAhM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=71&zoom=1&usg=__R06XLa2tYNdsLALUWKMY9MjqCkc=&docid=U0Yoq7gpbvqsPM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=EdQLUam0B4up0AGCmYDQAg&ved=0CE8Q9QEwAw&dur=1121

[SHY_Veritas 0]

Another life lost to acts of violence is saddening. Later reports are probably going to say the culprit was a legal owner and member of the NRA using an AR-type "assault rifle" with Beta mags. Don't all gang bangers carry them concealed everywhere they go? It's so easy to hide them under their bandanas.

 

That is a very ignorant comment. We all know they carry their "assault rifles" in their pants that hang out right under their ass.

 

I bet the perp shot just like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYvsWo0uu8o

 

That is hilarious.

 

TINFOIL HAT.........ON How do we know it was gangbangers? There are no eyewitness accusations as to who the shooter was, just standard speculation by the police. My tinfoil hat theory is that this is not a coincidence and somebody whacked her to further their agenda or to make a point. Is it "O's" boys that will stop at no cost to see that their gungrabbing agenda is further backed by the general populous? Maybe a NWO hit squad to again further fan the anti's flame. If truth is stranger than fiction, well..... TIN FOIL HAT............OFF #1 on the list of bad shit that can happen to you is what happened to this girls parents. The loss of a child. My sincerest condolances go out to the family.

 

To be honest that was one of my first thoughts when I heard the news. With everything that is going on it seems like someone is trying to make the gun control argument stronger.