The Youngest Victims of Violence in Chicago

Sept. 15--One girl is afraid to get in a car. A boy fears the open space of city parks. A toddler has barely learned to speak but already knows how to say "bullet." They are among the youngest victims of Chicago's gun violence: eight children, all under the age of 8, wounded during a seven-week spasm of street violence that stained the city's summer.

The first victim was 1-year-old Demonte Freeman, shot in a drive-by while sitting on his mother's lap. Christian Lyles, 7, was next, wounded in the neck by a bullet that caught him while he played in a park.

All summer long, wounded little children arrived in the city's emergency rooms at a pace of about one a week. If the details were typical -- warring gangs and shooters who were sometimes children themselves -- the ages of the victims were not.

Jaden Donald, 5, was shot in the back while playing in a park; Quianna Tompkins, 6, was wounded while riding a scooter.

The eight young victims of street violence all survived the shootings. In their aftermath, some played video games while they recovered in hospitals. After checkups, they were handed stuffed animals and stickers. And then the children went home and ventured back onto the same streets where, only days or weeks before, they had been shot.

Some of the children seemed hesitant to step outside. But others, including two 4-year-olds, seemed too young to understand the danger. Then, it was their parents who worried.

After his 4-year-old daughter was shot in August, Victor Rivera had this revelation: "We're not safe anywhere." Now the 31-year-old tow truck driver doesn't want to let his little girl out of sight, even to go to preschool. Another parent, Leslie Freeman, 27, whose 1-year-old was wounded in June, wonders what type of person sees children and decides to open fire anyway.

Even inside their homes, two Chicago 5-year-olds were shot and killed this summer. Police say shootings are down. But that is of little comfort to the families, most of whom live in neighborhoods plagued by violence.

These are their stories.

Demonte, 1

Demonte Freeman is still learning words and figuring out how to express himself.

But when his mother points to the 7-inch scar on her arm, the energetic, precocious toddler with dark-brown, deep-set eyes speaks up.

"Bullet. Bullet," he says.

And when Leslie Freeman rubs her boy's left calf, her hand glides down his soft, dark-brown skin, then stops near the swollen spot -- about the size of a Jolly Rancher candy -- where a bullet still rests.

"It hurt?" she asks her little boy.

"No," Demonte says, shaking his head.

Then he breaks from his mother's grip and runs through the living room, rolling around on the shiny hardwood floors, clutching her phone like it's a prize.

Demonte was sitting on his mother's lap in a van on the warm Sunday evening of June 30 when he became a tiny, 21-month-old victim of Chicago's ongoing street violence.

Leslie Freeman, 27, was shot, too, in her left forearm.

Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said the shooting in the 1700 block of West 73rd Street in West Englewood had strong gang overtones; the family said it was a case of mistaken identity.

Last year, the single mother moved her four children about 23 miles north to the Pulaski Park community, hoping to provide a better life for them.

Every weekend, though, Freeman would take them back to the South Side, where they have family and friends.

Freeman and the children were just ending an enjoyable weekend "home" when gunfire erupted suddenly from a passing red van. She saw blood pouring from her arm.

A dozen shots. Boom. Boom. Boom. Over and over, Freeman said.

It wasn't until she tried to calm her crying, fussing toddler, as they waited for help, that she realized he had been struck too. Until that moment, Freeman was fine, she said. When she discovered the baby was hurt, she couldn't take it.

"I actually passed out," she said. "I was distraught. My son (was) 1. He don't deserve this at all. He ain't did anything to anybody.

"As a mother, it hurts. He hasn't even grown up. He doesn't even know anything."

Demonte spent two days at Mount Sinai Hospital, along with his mother. The two were on separate floors, but Freeman said she'd visit regularly. That's how she knew he'd recover fine.

But because the bullet was lodged deep in Demonte's leg, doctors are waiting to perform surgery to remove it.

Since the shooting, the bullet has pushed its way through the muscle tissue and is visible on the surface of his skin.

On a recent morning, Demonte -- who turned 2 last week -- ran around his house, climbing up on the dining room chairs and the couch without effort.

While his 9-month-old baby sister slept nearby, he crawled into her pink walker and zipped around the open floor. He was full of laughter, giggles and menacing grimaces for his mother.

When he could, he played patty-cake with his baby sister and then motioned as if he was going to eat her little hands, making her laugh out loud.

When Demonte gets of age, Freeman doesn't know how she will explain the scars on his calf to him. "How can you explain something like this?"

There are moments when she blames herself for what happened to him.

"I supposed to be there to protect him. My guards were down.

"How could this happen to a 1-year-old? What type of person ... sees kids and decides to shoot? That was just heartless."

-- Lolly Bowean

Keyontae, 6

The gunshot wound on the slim shoulders of 6-year-old Keyontae Mayes has healed nicely. The bullet nicked his shoulder bone and left the boy without permanent injury. Now it is time to have his stitches removed.

"Mom? Is it going to hurt?" the little boy asks.

No, his mother says, with soft reassurance.

It has been six weeks since Keyontae and his family were caught in a volley of gunfire just a block from their home Aug. 2. On that night, his mother, Akira Hudson, had been driving Keyontae and his two sisters home from Red Lobster at 11:30 p.m. when a minivan stopped in front of them and someone inside opened fire on a group of people on the sidewalk.

In the back seat, Keyontae sat up to look out the window. He thought: Fireworks!

Then a bullet tore through the car and ripped into Keyontae's shoulder.

When his mother turned to check on the children, Keyontae was sobbing and his shoulder was gushing blood.

Keyontae's wound wasn't life-threatening, and police didn't believe that the family was targeted. But the shooting left the boy shaken.

In the days after, Keyontae -- a child with big eyes, two missing front teeth and an affectionate nature -- lashed out at his mother. He seemed angry and confused.

"He was asking questions like, 'Why did they shoot me? What did I do?'" said Hudson, 27.

For two weeks, she kept him inside to give his shoulder and his spirit time to heal. But that only seemed to add to the boy's tumult. "He was crying because I wouldn't let him come outside and play," she said.

The family lives on a block in West Garfield Park where drug deals occur outside the door. Six weeks earlier, Keyontae's father, just released after a stint in jail on a drug charge, had been shot and killed four blocks away.

Keyontae barely knew his father, who had spent much of the boy's life in jail or prison. Still, the child sobbed through his father's funeral. Keyontae was still grieving when he was struck by the stray bullet in August.

Now the boy seems wary of the streets. Where he had once roamed freely -- circling the block on his bike and playing basketball in the alley -- he stays close to home. "He's a little more cautious," his mother says. "He don't want to be out there as much."

There are other moments when the outgoing boy giggles with his sisters, imitates their elaborate dance moves and taps out exuberant drum solos. His mother feels relief to see him "still focused on being a kid."

But she worries about the violence that seems to be closing in. On Aug. 25, a 14-year-old was shot and killed on their street.

She thinks about moving to Iowa or another safer place.

But first she has to make sure Keyontae is all right. She calls a taxi to take them to Mount Sinai Hospital. It is time to have the stitches removed.

As mother and son walk out their door, a police cruiser races up the street and comes to a stop. Two plainclothes officers, in bulletproof vests, jump out and run toward a neighbor's house.

Hudson and Keyontae step into the taxi with little more than a glance at the police.

In an exam room, Dr. Mason Milburn explains that the wound has healed and that Keyontae has "gotten lucky."

As the doctor speaks, Keyontae sits on the exam table, giggling and making funny faces.

But when the time comes for the stitches to be removed, the frightened child clambers onto his mother's lap. As each stitch is snipped, he clings to her and whimpers.

Then his mother simply holds him close and, in soothing tones, whispers that it will be all right.

-- Colleen Mastony

Jaden, 5

When he's outside chasing his older brother or playing video games and teasing his sisters, 5-year-old Jaden Donald doesn't let on that he's a recovering shooting victim who lost some major organs this summer.

The boy no longer walks around without a shirt, and he's insecure about his siblings or other children seeing the long scar on his belly, his mother said.

And then there are the moments when the small, milk chocolate-colored boy with almond-shaped eyes retreats into his West Pullman house with his mother and becomes solemn.

"I ain't going back outside," he tells his mother, and then asks if he can watch cartoons instead.

"He has his time when he outside and he playing and he fine," the boy's mother, said Jasmine Donald, 27. "Then he'll come in the house. ... He's scared to be outside too long."

Jaden, whose family fondly calls him "Juicy," was watching fireworks and playing with his three siblings at Cooper Park at 12:30 a.m. July 5 when he was shot twice as families raced to escape gunfire.

Police said the shooting stemmed from warring gang factions and Jaden was struck by stray fire.

One bullet went through his right leg. Another entered the left side of his back and ripped through his spleen. That night, Jaden had to be placed on life support and his damaged spleen, a kidney and part of his pancreas were removed.

After about six weeks of treatment, Jaden recovered enough to be discharged.

"I knew he was going to be all right," Donald said. "Something inside me told me he was going to be fine."

Now the boy is running and jumping, swimming and kicking. And fussing with his siblings as usual. Still, he has to take six medications each day. And he is on a strict diet and under medical observation to see how he progresses with the missing organs.

On a recent afternoon, Jaden stood on the porch surrounded by his family, playing a game on his mother's cellphone. When his older brother tried to take the device, Jaden jerked his body away.

When he thought no one was listening, Jaden asked his mother to take him for a smoothie. "I got $2," he said mischievously, pulling crumpled bills from his pocket. He had taken the cash from his older brother when the boy wasn't looking, he confessed. Then he smiled broadly.

Jaden doesn't like to talk about what happened the night he was shot, Donald said. At her urging, he has tried to push the experience from his memory.

When he recounts what happened, he remembers hearing shots and watching people scatter. He tried to run to his mother, he said, but he couldn't. The ambulance ride, when a paramedic turned rubber gloves into balloons to comfort him, is a blur.

"I don't remember that because my eyes wouldn't open," he said.

Jaden asks his mother whether he will be safe as long as he doesn't go to the park. He asks if the man who hurt him is in jail and far away.

"I keep telling him don't think about it, but of course he's going to think about it," Donald said. "He feels like, being a child and in the park, 'What did I do wrong?' So I want him to understand that the guy wasn't intentionally shooting at you. It's nothing that you did."

Jaden's siblings struggle to process their own feelings about that night while they rejoice at having their brother back home.

"I'm mad because it happened to him, and they always shooting," said Jaden's sister, Antoinette, 9. "I'm mad it happened to him."

Jada Donald, also 9, said she is "sad. Mad. Angry."

"I believe in God. I believe he's going to make it and be even stronger," she said.

-- Lolly Bowean

Tyvion, 7

On a recent afternoon, Tyvion Jackson couldn't sit still. The skinny 7-year-old slid across the living room in his bare feet, wrestled his nephew, tossed a paper airplane and jumped up and down on the couch -- his short, Mohawk-style haircut sprouting into the air with every leap.

But when he caught a glimpse of a teenage boy walking past the house, Tyvion seemed to deflate. He moved away from the window and quietly told his mother: "I'm scared."

"The boy," Tyvion said, pointing to the teen outside. "He be with Vont."

The teen on the street was a friend of Lavante "Vont" Jackson, a 15-year-old (unrelated to Tyvion) who was charged as an adult with opening fire at a passing car outside Tyvion's home in the 4200 block of West Fifth Avenue in the Lawndale neighborhood Aug. 18.

Tyvion had just returned from riding bikes with his 11-year-old cousin and was standing in the doorway of his home when two stray bullets struck him in the side and shoulder.

Since then, the second-grader, who loves science and dreams of being an astronaut, has been afraid to be alone. He no longer visits friends who live nearby because, his mother said, those friends have relatives who are close to the alleged shooter.

Even at home, the boy doesn't feel safe, his mother said. He sometimes runs through the living room for fear that a stray bullet could come through the window. He won't go upstairs or down to the basement by himself. At night he struggles with nightmares and has begun sleeping in his mother's bed.

"He's really changed," said his mother, Tasha McDuffie, 41.

The bullets did not hit any major organs, and doctors expect him to make a full recovery. In October he has an appointment with a surgeon to talk about removing bullet fragments from his torso. School officials have said they will connect him with a counselor.

In the meantime, his mother is trying to save enough money to move her family out of the neighborhood.

"You're supposed to be able to come in your home, relax and feel safe," she said. "And if you can't relax and feel safe in your own home, where can you be safe?"

-- Jeremy Gorner

Shyla, 4

Days after she and her brothers were caught in a drive-by shooting, 4-year-old Shyla Rivera was back at home -- a bandage around her right leg -- as she zipped around the kitchen on her pink scooter. It was almost like, her father said, "nothing had happened."

But when the family tried to take her on an errand, she refused to get in the car.

"No, no, no," the little girl cried. "I don't want to go!"

Shyla was riding in the back seat of her family's car about 10:30 p.m. Aug. 11, sitting between her brother and a family friend, when a grayish car pulled alongside and someone leaned out the window and began firing. Her brother threw himself over Shyla. But a bullet caught the girl in the thigh. Another hit her brother in the hip. The friend was struck in the elbow, shin and leg.

In the panicked minutes that followed, Shyla's oldest brother -- who was at the wheel -- sped to safety and flagged down a police officer. Their mother rushed to the scene in time to ride with Shyla in the ambulance, where she held the struggling girl so a paramedic could insert an IV.

"I kept thinking, 'Why? Why?'" said Maggie Matos, 38. "Who would do this to my daughter?"

The through-and-through gunshot wound missed Shyla's bone and artery, damaging only the muscle. Doctors said she would make a full recovery.

Back in her North Austin neighborhood home, the little girl with dark eyes and curly dark hair ran up and down the stairs, chatted on a toy cellphone and rode her big-wheel tricycle on the sidewalk. Her mother took her to the nail salon to have her tiny fingernails painted.

But Shyla seemed skittish. She would reach for an adult's hand when she left the house. She developed a habit of licking her hand or arm. At night she sometimes woke agitated and crawled into her parents' bed.

And then, of course, there was the car. Shyla is still reluctant to get in any car -- especially one driven by her oldest brother -- for fear she'll get shot again.

"I'm never going back in that car," she said.

Her parents say that neither of Shyla's brothers, nor the friends who were with them, are to blame. Police said the shooting in the relatively safe neighborhood of Portage Park may have been a case of mistaken identity.

Shyla's uncle was shot on the North Side 10 years ago, Matos said. Another uncle was killed by a shotgun blast in Rochester, N.Y.

Now the family worries about the girl they call their "princess." She is about to start preschool. Even though she will only be a few blocks from home, her parents feel nervous letting her go.

Her father, Victor Rivera, said: "I know when she goes to school, we're going to be thinking, 'How's she doing? How's she doing?' "

-- Jeremy Gorner

Christian, 7

When Christian Lyles arrived home from school on a recent Monday, the first thing the 7-year-old wanted to do was run upstairs and grab a can of Hawaiian Punch out of the fridge.

It was a good day for the second-grader from Donoghue Elementary School. He didn't have any headaches -- a side effect that sometimes grabs hold of the boy since he was shot in the neck during a Fourth of July celebration.

"Christian! You got any homework?" his mother called.

"Only two pages!" Christian replied, scampering toward the stairs with his 3-year-old brother.

The day of the shooting, Christian was lucky. The bullet left him with a superficial wound. And for now at least, memories of that terrifying day have taken a back seat to his math and reading homework. But any time the boy ventures near a park, he asks his mother: "Are they going to be shooting?"

On July 4 around 7:30 p.m., Christian was with his mother and other relatives, barbecuing at Cole Park in the Chatham neighborhood, when gunshots rang out. The family scattered.

"We was all trying to get down," his mother said. A bullet caught Christian in the neck, just behind his ear, going through a section of flesh and exiting the back of his head.

The recklessness of the shooting outraged Christian's mother, Shaunte Hill, 28, who was nine months pregnant at the time. She said the park had been filled with children.

"You see kids out there, and you still come out shooting?" she said.

She called her son "a trouper" and said the boy did not cry until medical personnel stuck a needle in his arm for an IV.

Police said a reputed gang member named Marshan Bradley, 21, had opened fire on two men in the park. They arrested Bradley a few days after the shooting and said Christian had been hit by stray fire.

Now, Christian's mother tries not to talk about the shooting. She tries not to think about the fact that the bullet almost killed her son. But it's clear Christian still thinks about it and worries whether it could happen again.

Not too long ago, his mother drove him to a family reunion at a forest preserve.

"On the car ride there, he asked me what kind of park we was going to," his mom said.

-- Jeremy Gorner

Quianna, 6

Quianna Tompkins, 6, was left in critical condition when she was shot in the chest as she rode her scooter in the Roseland neighborhood. Police said the girl was playing near where a memorial picnic was being held for a slain gang member in the 300 block of West 105th Street when gunfire erupted about 7:40 p.m. July 19. Three teenagers were later arrested in connection with the shooting. Quianna recovered from her physical injuries and was able to start school on time, her mother said. But the family declined to comment further, saying it wanted to forget the incident occurred.

Khalise, 4

Khalise Weatherspoon, 4, was shot twice in the abdomen July 29 as she rode a scooter near her grandmother's home. The girl was playing with her 3-year-old brother and two sisters near 71st and Rockwell streets in the Marquette Park neighborhood when two gunmen stepped from an alley and opened fire shortly before 5 p.m. Prosecutors said the shooters were aiming at people on a nearby porch in an attempt to avenge an earlier slaying. Police arrested three teenagers. The girl was treated at Mount Sinai Hospital, where she was listed in good condition and later released. On Thursday, three men were shot near the same spot where Khalise was wounded. Khalise's family declined to talk.

Tribune reporters Peter Nickeas and Adam Sege contributed.

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