CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — The families of murdered and missing people gathered on Friday in Daley Plaza, where they called attention to cases that have gone unsolved for years, sometimes decades — if they’re ever solved at all.
“He was 14 years old; he got shot seven times,” said Naomi Israel, who lost her nephew to gun violence seven years ago.
During Friday’s gathering at Daley Plaza, she was lending emotional support to Dorothy Riles, whose son Lamar Drakes was shot to death on this day three years ago. He was 28.
“This is hard,” Riles said. “He was taken from me. My son and his 3-year-old son. He didn’t deserve to die like this. He was innocent, working on his car. [A] gentleman came up and shot my son to death in cold blood.”
Israel said it’s long past time to solve these crimes and to get guns and criminals off the streets.
“Why [are] there so many people missing? Where are they going? Where are they? Why hasn't anybody tried to find out?”
The women were among those who said cases involving murdered and missing Black Chicagoans are not investigated as thoroughly as similar cases involving white Chicagoans, a claim that the Chicago Police Department leadership has routinely denied.
Organizer Ben Ivey, though, said the blame extends beyond investigators and lies also on Chicagoans unwilling to blow the whistle on crime.
“Blow that whistle … that’s what we ask for Chicago,” Ivey said. “Blow that whistle. Tell.”
There are substantial cash rewards now offered for information. Details can be found through the Still Searching Project website.
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