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SHOOTING

15-Year-Old Shot Dead After Performing at Obama's Inauguration

Caught in the crossfire of an alleged gang-related shooting in Chicago

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by Mary Noble

Senior Editor t

Image: Politix

15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton, who performed at Obama's inauguration last week, was shot and killed at a Chicago park on Tuesday.

The teen was standing with friends in Vivian Gordon Harsh Park when a gunman ran out of an alley and opened fire. Police think the shooting was gang-related, since others in the park at the time had gang affiliations. Another 16-year-old student was wounded in the leg.

Pendleton was an honor student and a member of the King College Prep Marching Band and Drill Team, which performed at Obama's inaugural. Her cousin described her movingly as a "walking angel."

The Kenwood neighborhood in which the shooting took place is relatively crime-free, though South Chicago generally is notorious for gun crime.

Via the Chicago Tribune and NBC.
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  • PolitixMary K
    Mary Noble, Senior Editor
    !
    Hey @Medicinebow,@Canoochee and @NTBFW - thanks for pointing that out, I've added a "fewer gun restrictions" option to the poll.
  • Zazziness
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    Yes, I'm sure this young girl would have been packin' heat at the park, has she been allowed. I try to stay open minded but the vigilante fantasies on the part of the gun advocates just get to be too much.
  • Medicinebow
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    @Zazziness Who's calling for kids in parks to carry guns? Please read my posts and then comment. I've repeatedly stated parents should have the means to protect their children.

  • View all 11 replies >

  • Canoochee
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    Where is the only option that could have saved this girl. Allow the citizens to arm themselves.
    Doesn't Chicago have the most restrictive gun laws in the nation?
    Haven't we been told gun control laws like Chicago's are needed to protect innocents like this little girl?

    This one is on the gun grabbers. You bear full responsibility for this girl's death along with the hundreds of other deaths in Chicago.
  • Canoochee
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    @Dan_Tien They could not without breaking the law. And why didn't Chicago's massive restrictions on firearms protect her?
  • Waynestew
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    No one is restricted from having a gun in Chicago that is alive put out by the right. I have plenty of family members that live there all are legal gun owners.
  • Tralee
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    @Waynestew Chicago certainly does have gun laws and restrictions:

    "CHICAGO — Not a single gun shop can be found in this city because they are outlawed. Handguns were banned in Chicago for decades, too, until 2010, when the United States Supreme Court ruled that was going too far, leading city leaders to settle for restrictions some describe as the closest they could get legally to a ban without a ban. Despite a continuing legal fight, Illinois remains the only state in the nation with no provision to let private citizens carry guns in public."

  • View all 50 replies >

  • o
    NTBFW
    !
    I can't vote because you left the answer off the poll. Get rid of the oppressive illogical gun restrictions in Chicago. And let the citizens defend themselves. The claim that the gun come from other places is false. The states that surround Chicagoland don't have the crime problems that Chicago have because the don't have those restrictive gun control laws.
  • Fishbone345
    !
    You aren't being completely factual. The areas you are pointing to as not having the same issues have smaller populations, of course the crime rate is smaller.
    Big cities have more people and more money. That is why these things happen there. Comparing Smalltown USA with Chicago is comparing apples and oranges. New Orleans is in Lousiana, Atlanta is in Georgia both are gun friendly states and their crime rates aren't miniscule like you are claiming they should be.
  • jessejaymes
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    @Fishbone345 Further what she is omitting is that while Chicago has restrictive gun laws, suburbs of Chicago less than half an hour away have very non restrictive gun laws. I read the other day that you can get a gun as easily in some Chicago suburbs as you can in Texas.
  • o
    NTBFW
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    @Fishbone345 try Houston or Austin. The rates are a half to a fifth of Chicago. And I mean per capita. But you are aware of the lack of prosecution for gun crimes has actually gone down over the past four years. I am saying it is a crime problem. Treat it as a crime problem. Another point I read a poll of convicted criminals. The overwhelming response was they are more afraid of citizens with guns than being caught by police. No citizens alone can't stop this. But combining strong enforcement vigorous prosecution AND less gun control, does work. What frustrates me is the insistence that the proposals put forth by Obama make people fell better but don't accomplish anything.
  • Thunderchicken
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    @jessejaymes

    "I read the other day that you can get a gun as easily in some Chicago suburbs as you can in Texas. "

    I doubt that. While I’ve never purchased a gun in TX, I do work in IL and live in MO. It’s much easier to legally purchase a gun in MO than in IL. IL has a required Firearms Owner ID (FOID) card before you can purchase anything gun related. However in parts of “da hood”, you can get anything you want if you’re willing to pay.
  • o
    NTBFW
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    @Thunderchicken true. Criminals buying guns from criminals. A crime problem. But Obama wants to restrict law abiding citizens. Yeah that's going to help. Smh.

  • View all 36 replies >

  • Medicinebow
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    It's sad when things like this happen. The residents live in basically a "gun free" zone. Nobody walking the streets has the ability to defend themself. A parent is left defenseless to protect their kids in public.
  • o
    woodtick57
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    You think someone there having a gun would have stopped this? weren't the guys with here afilliated with gangs? wouldn't they have had guns?
  • Food4thoughts
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    I lived in the southside...cops WITH guns WON'T go there...what makes you think an untrained citizen would do that trained police officers are afraid to do?
  • Medicinebow
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    @woodtick57 We don't know if someone being there could have stopped it. We know for sure unarmed residents that live in the area can't stop it. Aren't the actions of these gang members illegal? What would you suggest? Defenseless citizens are dying with Chicago's ban on allowing the law abiding to remain defenseless.
    Maybe we need more laws?? <sarcasm>
  • o
    NTBFW
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    @Food4thoughts you vastly underestimate the power of citizens that are defending their neighborhoods. There are more good people than bad. Give them the means to defend themselves. You will see crime rates drop.

  • View all 57 replies >

  • jessejaymes
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    The rap culture has destroyed the black community. As sad as this little girl being killed it happens every day across america when some pants sagging, illiterate, 40 chugging sub human takes offense at some perceived "diss" and start blasting. It's EVERYWHERE today. Until America decides to snuff out the rap culture, the rap culture will continue to destroy America.
  • rkinsawjoe
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    @jessejaymes You're right on point cousin except for one very important detail. The solution to this problem is in the hands of African Americans alone. I say that because most people,black and white alike, will have already flipped the switch on 'ol rkinsawjoe and if they bother to read further it will only be to find out exactly how bad a racist I am. That I am one goes without question because 1) I'm white 2)Southern 3) I had the temerity to say that the black community was actually responsible for solving a problem that it created.
    I recognize the tragedy and loss of this young girls life just as you do. But the fact of business is that those closest too her and by that I mean those standing next to her when she was shot, would not identify or name her killer if they could. Many wouldn't have a problem though with "strappin up" or "gettin a gat" or whatever cool sayin they have these days for using a gun to fire indiscriminately into a crowd of people or in the general direction of their target without a care in the world for who else might be hit. You see, it ain't white folks that hate and murder black folks...it's black folks that hate and murder black folks.
  • kathyparsell
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    @jessejaymes Don't give me your everywhere #hit, gang activity is very limited and very uncessuful in my area and the citizens here are not going to see it happen "up in here". It is much less than our first gang related violence reported almost 10 years ago. Maybe it's the high (!extremely) populace of legal open gun owners or maybe the amount of crazy and I mean crazy people running the streets, but gang violence here is more like unheard of until someone is arrested and then later linked to a gang.

    Forget take back the night...take back our country from those who our government allow to pray upon us.
  • Medicinebow
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    @kathyparsell "Maybe it's the high (!extremely) populace of legal open gun owners" in California? Try again. How many legal open gun owners are causing the problem?
  • jessejaymes
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    @rkinsawjoe Unfortunately you're correct on several counts. Any statement about the black community (or the brown or the asian) today by white people is immediately branded as racist. So whites tend to simply pretend that blacks don't exist because if you say anything negative about the rap culture there is all kinds of blacks wanting to lynch you as a racist. Never mind that there are more Latino gang bangers than there are black ones. A thug is a thug is a thug but that's not the way that the politically correct left winger sees it. They are all "humans" and should be shown respect. That's BS. My black partner of 30 years would not allow rap in his home. Both his daughters are Harvard MBA. In our store we had concerts but Norm would not allow rap artists to perform. He was death on rap. The ghetto blacks called Norm an Uncle Tom. Norm called them N&*(^rs . Norm lost both legs in Viet Nam. Norm grew up in Compton California. Norm never ever felt the need to conform to what is "Blackness" in the ghetto. Norm always said he was green. He loved money. So there you have it. If I said anything about black gangs I was a racist. If he did he was an Uncle Tom. There is a problem in Black america and it's a cancer killing the community. The rap culture. And until they decide they're done with it nobody is going to care how it turns out for them. You can't cure an addict until that addict is willing to be cured.

  • View all 12 replies >

  • jessejaymes
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    This is not going to be solved by more gun laws. This is going to be solved by putting known gang members in jail for being in a gang and executing them for using a gun in the commission of a crime. These gang members are not human people. We have regressed. We have a species of sub humans in our society who are not much more advanced than neanderthals. They don't care about gun laws. They're not following gun laws. This whole thing about taking guns is such BS when in FACT the only damn people that will have guns if the liberals have their way, will be the god damn gangsters. Is that what you really want?
  • GmanGSW
    !
    Nope, don't want that. I agree with you. Taking weapons away from the law-abiding (a "ban") will only allow the criminals to get them more easily on the black market, and use them even more easily on the innocent... Chicago, "gun banned" for decades, is a rather dangerous place to live in, I imagine, as is.
  • stepped_in_it
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    Only comment/addition:"only damn people that will have guns if the liberals have their way, will be the god damn gangsters" and LEO's (who will be both out-gunned and out numbered to make any difference).
  • Buzzfriendly
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    Waddaya know no assault weapon was used but hey lets not stop a campaign against a type gun that is rarely used to commit the vast majority of the crimes. Gun control appeases the stupid and enables the criminal.
  • u
    tomincali
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    to add i thought chi had some of the strictest gun laws in the country,id so this again shows they do nothing other than cause legal owners headaches.
  • u
    tomincali
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    @AceLuby just a guess being in my area the time a gang member is old enough to legally buy he has a record that would prevent it.
  • jessejaymes
    !
    @tomincali We are nearly 40 years into the "rap culture". More than music it's a culture of violence, where you're not a man unless you will kill, abusing women, having kids like a body count, never supporting those kids, doing drugs, rampant alcoholism and only chumps work. Forty years. That means grandparents now raising kids were raised in the culture. It's a lost cause. It's now cradle to grave.
  • jessejaymes
    !
    @AceLuby Which rock culture would that be? Elvis shaking his hips never glorified gangs shooting people in the streets. John Lennon saying the Beatles were bigger than Christ never glorified being a thug and being shot 9 times like 50 cent did. The Sex Pistols glorification lasted less than two year and ended in utter scorn for some punks who had no talent. A death metal concert couldn't fill a stadium if you gave all the tickets away free. Mind you I am not defending genres of music such as punk and metal but they never had the impact or following of the rap culture. Rap is the only culture that transcends the music to an entire culture of violence. I can live with the beat and some of the rhyming but I can't live with the culture. Not Eminem, Not Lil rob, Not Lil Wayne. It's not about race. It's about destruction and don't you know you can count me out.
  • u
    AceLuby
    !
    @jessejaymes I'm not saying there aren't punks or that the rap you disgust is good (because it isn't), what I'm saying is that all genres of music have their bad apples and good ones. As for hip hop, I absolutely can't stand gangster rap, but I enjoy the stylings of Lyrics Born, Madisyahu, Sublime, Deploi, Arrested Development, The Roots, etc... IMO it's not a 'rap culture' it's 'gang culture' that sometimes uses rap to express themselves.

    And don't get me wrong, I understand 100% where you are coming from because I did a bit of engineering work on the side for some extra cash and eventually had to shut down because most of my clientele was gangster rap who didn't realize the cost or effort needed in making a quality track. That, and I didn't want any of them following me home...

  • View all 8 replies >

  • u
    TexasMule
    !
    First, my thoughts are with this intelligent, beautiful young girl's family and friends. I do not want to detract from this tragedy but the question I have in my heart is: Who was it that murdered this young lady? Answer: Criminal(s) that do not follow the gun laws in Chicago.'Nuff said.
  • Tralee
    !
    There you go, Chicago has some of the toughest gun laws around, yet here we have this young woman shot to death. More proof that banning guns does not stop any killings, the bad guys don't follow any laws, they either steal a gun, buy a gun on the street or go out of the state and buy one, probably just buy one on the street that was stolen from a law abiding citizen.
  • Quantummist
    !
    This is just not possible... No way theres been 40 murders in Chicago already this month... After all they Ban All Assault weapons, Ban HiCap Magazines and have the some of the toughest/strictest Gun Laws in the United States... So No Way this actually happened.... You guys are just making stuff up again...
  • russ
    !
    How truly unfortunate that a young lady with a lifetime ahead of her lost her life. But hey, notice where it took place? So, how is that control thingy workin out for you Chicago? I've come to realize that facts are a moot point to those lemmings willing to be led by misinformation and malfeasance. But for anyone (pro or con) who cares to enlighten themselves, I encourage you to see the following link: http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp#const...
  • Knightkore
    !
    This isn't a "gun" issue so much as a gang issue....perhaps treat the gangs as mafia....and start breaking them up....and rehabilitating these wayward kids....and adults....

    And enforce sensible gun laws....possibly loosening restrictions....for honest law abiding citizens....
  • u
    norezen
    !
    Thats why I voted for end war on drugs. Without drug profit motive a lot (not all) of gangs will fall apart. There will be less turf fighting.
    But its safe to say gun laws don't prevent gun violence.
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