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March 16, 2008

Religious leaders, others pray and rally for young victims

By Joyce Duriga and Michelle Martin

Eighteen Chicago public school students have been killed by gun violence since the school year started in September.

One is too many, according to Father Michael Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina Parish, Mayor Richard M. Daley and a group of religious leaders, public officials and parents of slain children who gathered at St. Sabina March 11 to announce two initiatives under the banner of “Save Our Children.”

First, Pfleger said, members of the group will gather at the James R. Thompson Center, Randolph and Clark streets, at 11 a.m. the morning after any child is shot and killed in Chicago. The group will demonstrate to demand the state legislature enact “common sense” gun laws.

“Save Our Children also will offer a $5,000 reward in any case where the perpetrator is not immediately known to police. St. Sabina has put the first $5,000 into the fund, Pfleger said, and Chicago Public Schools Superintendent Arne Duncan pledged to contribute $2,500 towards the reward whenever a child is killed.

The reward is meant to emphasize that the lives of all children have equal value,” said Pfleger, who also encouraged anyone who knows about a perpetrator to turn him or her in. “There is no life that is more or less valuable.”

Annette Holt, whose 16-yearold son Blair was shot and killed on a CTA bus last May, said the loss of a child causes pain “that you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.”

“This is domestic terrorism,” said Holt, who fought back tears when she began to speak. “We’re over in Iraq fighting. We need to be here fighting for our own children.”

Daley, who has pushed for additional gun control measures in Springfield for 19 years with no success, said the problem of gun violence transcends economic, racial and urban and suburban boundaries. He laid the blame at the feet of gun manufacturers.

“This is all about money,” he said. “Who’s making the money?” He also called on everyone to dispose of guns they might have in their homes.

“Guns are not going to settle anything in your family or your home or your community,” he said, noting that every time a teenager goes out to settle a score with a gun, two lives are ruined — the victim’s and the shooter’s.”

The rally came two days after Ruben Ivy, a Crane High School student, was shot and killed and less than a week after a March 5 vigil.

At the vigil, ministers, Chicago police officers and community members gathered at Miracle Center Baptist Church, 5634 W. Chicago Ave., to pray for an end to gun violence and to pray for the family of Kadeidrah Marsh, a 15-year-old girl from the Austin neighborhood who was gunned down in front of her grandmother’s home on N. Waller Ave.

Marsh was one of eight public school students shot in one weekend.

“There are so many guns available in our community,” Vance Henry, civilian leader of CAPS, the city’s community policing program, told the more than 100 people gathered at the church. “A young person obviously lost her way. She had access to a gun, which is the biggest problem.”

The violence on the streets, at least among teens, seems to be escalating.

That’s not news for Gary Slutkin, executive director of CeaseFire, a violence outreach effort that employs people who go out and “interrupt” gun violence. They work in Chicago’s highest risk areas, interacting with people who are “highly upset or feeling the need to shoot someone,” Slutkin said. They train people to recognize people in that state of anger and to work out conciliatory agreements. Cardinal George serves as honorary chair of the group’s religious task force.

There is a lot of hostility right now on the streets of these high-risk communities, he said. “The police in Chicago are doing a very good job. But if someone has their mind made up that they need to kill someone else they are going to do it.” The state cut much of the group’s funding in August and Slutkin said he believes some of the killings may have been prevented if CeaseFire didn’t have to cut back it’s staff.

“We interrupt these conflicts all of the time,” adding that in the past four years his group has interrupted 1,500 incidents.

The seeming disregard for life that is evident in these crimes is not new.

“The violence has become normal in Chicago as in most of the large cities. It’s not abnormal. We have to interrupt that conflict,” Slutkin said.

Mary-Louise Kurey, director of the archdiocese’s Respect Life Office agreed.

“These shootings highlight that the respect life message in its entirety is needed more than ever,” she said.

“Mother Teresa said, ‘The greatest destroyer of peace is abortion. Our society teaches that killing before birth is OK, which coarsens society and leads to killing after birth as well. The church has the answer — the message of the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death. The challenge is getting people to understand and evangelize with compassion and courage.”

Duriga is editor and Martin is assistant editor of the Catholic New World.