A mass shooting at a Halloween vigil in Chicago turns deadly when a man dies | Media Pyro

A 48-year-old man who friends said was on life support after the shooting died Friday afternoon at Mount Sinai Hospital when a mass shooting at a Halloween night vigil turned deadly, the Cook County medical examiner’s office said. .

Pierre Riley was a friend of the woman being honored that night, said Cheris Patterson, who organized the vigil on the city’s West Side.

Patterson was at home Friday afternoon, reflecting on the chaos of the Halloween mass shooting that left 14 people dead, including himself, a sister and her cousins: two brothers, ages 3 and 13. Another woman was hit by a car and injured while fleeing the scene.

She said Patterson, 40, knew all the victims personally and had relationships with many. She organized the gathering in the East Garfield Park neighborhood on Halloween out of love for her cousin, Shakiya Lucas, 38, who died suddenly after undergoing surgery.

“I am mentally fine. “Physically bruised, but I’m alive,” Patterson said.

Lucas was diabetic and underwent surgery to insert a tube into her body. After returning home she died of infection in her body. “Something went wrong,” Patterson said.

That night, after a Halloween party, they held a vigil. The children who were shot had dressed hours earlier.

When asked how he could come to terms with what had happened, Patterson said he couldn’t and that their pain would never go away.

“You want to ask why, but you know, it’s devastating … that somebody would do something like that on purpose,” she said of the shooters.

“You get in your car and drive into this neighborhood, you see women and children, and you have the right choice: ‘Hey, can I do this or not.’ “You have to be an absolute monster to be able to visually see and deliberately shoot women and children,” Patterson said.

A Halloween vigil shooting is the deadliest in a Chicago shooting since March 2021, when two people were killed and 13 injured at a pop-up party in the Park Manor neighborhood. Four guns were recovered from the spot. This is the second shooting in Chicago in a year that has killed 15 people.

In July 2020, 15 people were shot outside Gresham’s funeral home. In that shooting, a car drove down 79th Street and at least two people opened fire on a group of people gathered to mourn the man named Donnie Weathersby. The shooting victims ranged in age from 21 to 65, including 10 women. Two people are in serious condition in the attack. Police linked the shooting to a revenge cycle of gang violence.

Despite the numbers, these mass shootings have not reached the level of coverage that followed this year’s Fourth of July shooting in suburban Highland Park, where seven people were killed and 48 injured by bullets or shrapnel when a man fired a rifle from a rooftop. Below the parade spectators.

Claudio S. Rivera, a University of Chicago assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral neuroscience, said trauma from a mass shooting must be taken into context. He said it’s unfair to compare how a community like Highland Park would respond to a mass shooting with East Garfield Park.

“We’ve failed to do more harm than good by focusing solely on (mass shootings) and not focusing on the context and history of dealing with these communities,” Rivera said. “The social carnage that has occurred as a result of the absence of these communities is accepted as part of the everyday, and we turn our gaze to these communities until one of these amazing events occurs.”

Keeping a vigil on Halloween night, the group, which included women and children, was standing at the corner of South California Avenue and West Polk Street around 9:20 p.m. when two men inside a dark SUV began shooting, police said. The vehicle, possibly an Audi sedan, fled southbound.

The victim, Lakita Kent (34), was hit by a car while trying to escape and remains in hospital. “The shooter hit her with a car,” Patterson believes. “She was beaten and dragged very badly.”

Nine of the victims, including an 11-year-old girl and five women, are recovering at home, but four, including Kent, were being treated in hospital on Friday.

Patterson’s 13-year-old cousin remains at Mount Sinai and still hasn’t walked.

“He’s in a lot of pain,” Patterson said. His brother, 3, was shot and is now at home.

“They went trick-or-treating next door, and that’s why these kids were out. It was a party for these kids,” she said, adding that the 13-year-old was also “concerned” because he lost his Kyrie Irving basketball shoes.

Rivera said a mass shooting can be very confusing for a child and make them wonder if they can provide or care for their safety. If a child is involved in a tragedy like a mass shooting, the support network needs to help restore the child’s social contract that the world will keep them safe, he said.

“Communities are better able to do that when they have the resources because they can provide predictability, security and structure,” he said. “Young children are still trying to learn about the world that way. If we don’t repair it, or prevent the traumas that happen to them, it can lead to a lot of negative moods and affect their hope for the future.

A proper response to trauma in children should not only teach the child mental health skills, but also address the rest of the child’s environmental conditions that exacerbate their trauma, Rivera said.

In this event, many of the victims are within the same social circle, which can put pressure on the community, because social connections and relationships are one of the main factors that help people overcome trauma, Rivera said. The fact that this occurred in a social circle may increase the likelihood that they may have less resources to not only cope on their own, but also to help each other and their children.

“When the surrounding community and communities like that experience such tragedies or similar events they start to have those trauma reminders and feel injustice or injustice in the world,” he said. People recognize that this pattern is not accidental.

Patterson’s own sister, Contina Patterson, 47, underwent surgery on Friday. “She has a skin graft,” Patterson said of Contina, who was shot in the leg.

A man in his late 30s was shot in the chest, “in two more places,” she said. He is also still undergoing treatment in the hospital.

Patterson struggled to understand what shooters had to attack.

“It’s a disgusting thing to do. To me that is a lie. What: do you hate women and children?” she asked the shooters.

“We are not associated with any gang or feud. We don’t know what’s going on. There is no excuse for you to fire. There’s no excuse,” Patterson said. “I pray they get caught.”

The siblings are going to be affected for the rest of their lives, she said. But “they have a great mom,” Patterson added.

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Until her injuries, Patterson would receive physical therapy. She still has three bullets in her leg. “Now it’s safe,” she said doctors believe. “But I’m in pain.”

“I’m on a walk. I have big holes in me. Last night I reached down and felt the bullet in the side of my leg and I was scared.

Being unable to stand, she is relegated from her jobs as a hairdresser and decorator.

“We’re still hurt. We will be like that for the rest of our lives. “

“I pray they are caught. You hurt these kids. You hurt us and we are forever traumatized.

@RosemarySobol1

@paigexfry