West Side Chicago community holds vigil after 2 mass shootings on Easter Sunday
CHICAGO (CBS) -- It was a deadly Easter weekend in the city of Chicago – with at least six people killed and more than two dozen hurt in shootings around the city.
This included two mass shootings that transpired in the West Side's Austin neighborhood alone. On Tuesday night, community and police leaders rallied for peace.
The community came together because they can't allow two mass shootings to happen hours apart and accept it as the norm. While they called for peace, they also hit the streets with police in search of clues to the victims and their families.
As prayers echoed in Austin, the crowd stood in the same spot on Madison Street where four people were shot in the first of two mass shootings Easter Sunday. All of them were teenage girls or young women.
One of the victims -- identified as Ariana Murphy, 19 -- was killed.
"We failed our kids," said Ald. Emma Mitts (37th). "The kids are not in touch. There's a disconnect between the adults and the kids."
Ald. Mitts organized the rally Tuesday night, because as she has put it, she and others are fed up – and worry the past weekend's mass shootings may be a prelude to this summer.
"I'm afraid - and I don't want that that to be what I see this summer," Mitts said, "but in my gut, I feel that's what's going to happen this summer."
The first mass shooting happened at 1:02 a.m. at Poppy's Chat Room, 5333 W. Madison St. Police said a group of people were inside the café when someone came in and shot them all.
Murphy was killed, and three others – ages 17, 19, and 20 – were rushed to emergency rooms with gunshot wounds.
In broad daylight the same Easter Sunday at 2:50 p.m., there was another mass shooting in the neighborhood – about half a mile north and a mile east. Four people – all young men or teenage boys - were on the sidewalk in the 400 block of North Lavergne Avenue, near Ferdinand Street, when a vehicle pulled up and two people got out and opened fire.
A 16-year-old boy died. Three men, one of them 21 and the other two 25, were wounded.
"They always say hurt people hurt people, and that's what we're dealing with," said Pastor George Bady.
Pastor Bady was among the dozens who not only rallied for peace Tuesday night, but also walked the same streets where the shootings happened - along with Chicago Police. They hoped to drum up tips in the two investigations.
"Because every time it happens to one person, they want their 'lick' back. So it's a continuing continuance," Bady said. "So it's like, OK, we put a Band-Aid over this wound - now something else happened. Now it's bleeding again. That's why we're out here - to bring everybody together."
"This is part of the reason we're out here doing this mobilization," said Austin (15th) District police Cmdr. Carlin Morse, "to allow the community to understand and restore that faith in us, so they can come forward."
Sources said Chicago Police late Tuesday were questioning and detaining three young men in connection with the second mass shooting on Lavergne Avenue.
But as for the mass shooting outside Poppy's, police are getting very few clues.
