South Side Mother Who Lost 2 Sons To Gun Violence In 2010 Has Now Lost Her Eldest Too
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Gun violence has taken an emotional toll on a grieving mother on the city's South Side.
As CBS 2 Investigator Megan Hickey reports, Sheree Tribett has lost not one, not two, but three sons to the city's gun violence epidemic.
Tribett's sons were all shot and killed all within a short distance of one another in the Chatham and Grand Crossing areas. The first two died 10 years ago, and their big brother, Joseph, lost his life on Sunday morning.
Tribett said as she once again talks to police detectives and the Cook County Medical Examiner's office, she is getting horrible déjà vu.
"All over. All over," she said. "I thought I would never go through this again. I lost two boys to gun violence. I lost a nephew to gun violence. And then 10 years later I lost my oldest son? When is this going to stop? When is this going to end?"
Tribett said it is a pain she ever dreamed she would have to experience again.
Her son, 34-year-old son Joseph Brooks, was one of the 10 people shot and killed this Memorial Day weekend.
He was standing on the in the 7800 block of South Ingleside Avenue when someone fired shots from a black sport-utility vehicle early Sunday morning.
Now, Tribett is reliving a nightmare from almost a decade ago she lost her 17-year-old son, Jeremy Brooks, the same way. He had been fatally shot a block and a half to the west near 78th Street and Cottage Grove Avenue in broad daylight.
Then, just three weeks later, Tribett's other son, 18-year-old Jajuan Brooks, had gone out for pizza when he was fatally shot just a block away - also on Cottage Grove Avenue.
Now, this holiday weekend's violence has brought back all of Tribett's pain, and more. She thought the violence would slow down with the stay-at-home order in place for the coronavirus pandemic.
"I did, honestly I did, but it obviously it did not work. It did not work," she said. "You think one is hard enough, but three?"
Joseph Brooks was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center with a gunshot wound to the left side of the body, and he died there early Sunday morning.
The family has already received an enormous outpouring of tributes to him online.
No one has been arrested in Joseph's murder, nor the murder of his two younger brothers in 2010. Tribett said she never got any answers about her two sons who died in 2010.
As for Joseph's case, at last check, Chicago Police said there was no one in custody and Area Two detectives are investigating.
Tribett has set up a GoFundMe to help with funeral expenses for son Joseph.