Police: Chicago teen killed four to avenge father’s slaying
CHICAGO — Chicago police believe a teenage gang member shot and killed four men at a South Side restaurant last week to avenge the fatal shooting of his father a few blocks away the previous night.
Police and prosecutors said three eyewitnesses identified 19-year-old Maurice Harris as the lone gunman who killed the four in a “hail of gunfire” outside Nadia Fish and Chicken restaurant at 75th Street and Coles Avenue at 3:30 p.m. As two of the victims fled into the restaurant, Harris opened the entrance door and gunned them down, prosecutors said.
A day earlier, Harris’ father, 37-year-old Jerry Jacobs, was shot and killed at 79th Street and South Phillips Avenue, police said.
The quadruple homicide was among seven killings in the South Shore neighborhood on March 30 — a spate of violence that came just as Chicago police were touting a slight drop in homicides and shootings for the first quarter of 2017.
During a Wednesday morning news conference at police headquarters, Chicago police Cmdr. Brendan Deenihan said a double slaying that occurred hours after the quadruple homicide may be connected, but he would not elaborate.
Police and prosecutors said that this marked Harris’ first arrest as an adult but that he had an extensive criminal record as a juvenile, compiling 29 arrests and four findings of delinquency.
Deenihan said Harris refused to give a statement to detectives, so police can’t be certain of his motive, but it seemed obvious enough with the slaying of his father the previous night.
“I think a reasonable belief would be that his father got killed and then subsequently he shoots and kills these four people,” the commander said. “Does he do that randomly? I mean only he can answer that question. I wouldn’t suspect he would just pick four random people on the street. That wouldn’t make sense to me.”
Deenihan said Jacobs’ slaying and the quadruple homicide had gang overtones involving members of the Black P Stones and the Lafa faction of the Gangster Disciples.
Leon Pope, who identified himself as a cousin to Harris, disputed the murder charges against him.
“Just because his pops got killed ... they can’t put them bodies up on him. Anybody could’ve done that,” said Pope, 28, clad in a black hooded sweatshirt as he shivered slightly in the cold while standing Wednesday afternoon on the front porch of a South Shore home. “They just doing that because my little cousin just got out of jail, his daddy just got killed, the type of area we in, the people who we affiliated with.”
Pope acknowledged the neighborhood can be a dangerous.
“I don’t even like walking around here no more,” he said. “There ain’t no telling what would happen.”
At a bond hearing at the Leighton Criminal Court Building earlier Wednesday, Cook County prosecutors identified Harris as a documented member of the Black P Stones’ faction No Limit.
Harris, who is charged with four counts of first-degree murder, was ordered held without bond. Harris’ attorneys had asked Judge Adam Bourgeois to set a bond in hopes that Harris could attend his father’s funeral, but the judge refused.
Assistant State’s Attorney Jamie Santini said three eyewitnesses identified Harris as the lone shooter of the four victims: Dillon Jackson, 20; his brother, Raheem Jackson, 19; Emmanuel Stokes, 28, and Edwin Davis, 32.
Santini said Harris emerged from a vacant lot by the restaurant and opened fire with a semi-automatic handgun as the four tried to flee the hail of gunfire. The Jackson brothers were both fatally shot in the back outside the restaurant, while the two others fled into the restaurant. Witnesses saw Harris standing in the doorway of the restaurant as he opened fire, gunning down Stokes and Davis, according to the prosecutor. Both were struck multiple times and died in the restaurant.
Witnesses reported hearing additional gunshots from outside the restaurant after Harris fled, Santini said.
Harris was arrested Tuesday afternoon in south suburban Blue Island, according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors said Harris’ criminal record as a juvenile included his admission of guilt in 2013 to a charge of unlawfully possessing a firearm and a finding of delinquency to a charge of armed robbery and vehicular invasion in 2016.
At the news conference, Superintendent Eddie Johnson said Harris was “no stranger to CPD nor is he unfamiliar with using an illegal handgun.”
“Despite the fact that we know these incidents were tied to gang conflicts, it doesn’t lessen the weight of what happened,” Johnson told reporters. “It certainly doesn’t make me as a Chicagoan and as a leader of this department any less angry and disgusted at the destruction some individuals are willing to cause by their own hand.”
The bloodshed on March 30 began with the discovery of the body of 26-year-old Patrice Calvin, who was four months pregnant and found shot to death inside an apartment near 75th Street and Luella Avenue.
Deenihan said it does not appear so far that Calvin’s death was connected to the other killings.
About 10:30 p.m., seven hours after the quadruple slaying, Cornell Patrick, 27, and Dominique Scott, 23, were seated in a silver van outside the South Shore Cultural Center on 71st Street near South Shore Drive when a black Jeep pulled alongside and an occupant opened fire, police said. Both were pronounced dead on the scene.
Law enforcement sources have said Patrick was known to be affiliated with the Gangster Disciples’ Lafa faction.