Chicago man, 71, gunned down while answering his door
CHICAGO -- The family of a man shot and killed Sunday as he stood in his doorway says for decades he made his home open to anyone in need on his block in Chicago's Back of the Yards neighborhood.
CBS Chicago reports that someone knocked loudly on 71-year-old Freddell "Big Freddy" Bryant's front door Sunday morning, and when he opened it, promptly shot him two times.
"He opened the door for anybody," said Bryant's niece Lolita Hancock. "Why wouldn't he open the door this morning thinking it's one of his kids coming to the door? And these bastards shot him through the door for nothing."
Bryant came to Chicago from Helena, Ark., at age 18, and spent his life working construction, raising a family of nine children and living on Green Street for more than three decades.
"He raised everybody on this block, everybody stayed in his house," said Tracey Hancock, another of Bryant's niece. "If they didn't have a place to go, they could come here and he would always open his door to everybody and for somebody to come and shoot him down like a dog, it's not fair."
Now, family members mourn their loss, and wonder about what the city has become.
"When they say "Chiraq," this is Chiraq because something's got to give, something's got to give in Chicago," Lolita Hancock said, referring to a slang nickname used to equate violence in Chicago with that of Iraq. "We're losing our youth, we're losing our elderly, everything, it's just innocent people."