'We Are Resilient:' Chatham Residents Respond To Weekend Mass Shooting
CHICAGO (CBS) --- There are serious questions about Chicago police resources.
As CBS 2's Jim Williams reported Monday, they come on the heels of another deadly mass shooting over the weekend.
Community leaders met Monday evening with police brass and other city officials at a restaurant to discuss the alarming violence on busy 75th Street over the weekend. They've made a lot of investments on 75th Street in the last year and they don't want to lose ground.
For 28 years, Samuel Wallace has worked at a store on 75th Street, and only in the last two weeks has had to close the gates.
"There was a time when you did not have to lock up the gate," Wallace said. "It was a time I didn't have the lock the gate. We didn't have this problem."
Pop up parties, like one across the street on 75th, are drawing enormous crowds in the street.
"Three hundred people to 2,000 people show from midnight to 5 a.m.," Wallace said.
It was at 75th Street and Prairie Avenue at one of those parties at 2 a.m. Saturday, two people walked up and started firing.
A young mother identified as 29-year-old Kimfier Miles was killed and nine others were wounded.
It was a mass shooting, with police nearby, trying to control the crowd.
"If the alley was here, police in that corner and on that corner. So it was brazen. just brazen disregard."
Nedra Sims-Fears, executive director Greater Chatham Initiative, said tells she understand young people want a place to enjoy a warm evening.
But she echoes the complaints from neighbors that the partygoers are parking on sidewalks.
That's leaving trash in the street and disturbing the peace in the middle of the night.
"We want people to celebrate that they're out of COVID and that they can get back to a normal life," Sims-Fears said. "But we would like for them to do it in a respectful way."
On the very same very stretch of 75th where the mass shooting happened, Chatham business leaders and the city of Chicago have created an award-winning boardwalk for outdoor dining.
Well maintained homes line side streets, in a neighborhood of active block clubs.
Shortly after nightfall, the diners leave. And in the two weeks were replaced by young people.
"We know there are few bad apples that want to destroy our sense of hope, our sense of being a collective but we are going to be 75th Street strong," Sims-Fears said. "We are resilient and we're not going to let someone take away our joy."
Mayor Lori Lightfoot and police Supt. David Brown joined community leaders as they gathered on lawn chairs Monday evening. After the meeting, neighbors walked through the community to emphasize their demand for respect and for peace.