Now that two suspects have been charged in the slaying of Hadiya Pendleton, our focus turns from the extraordinary qualities of her life to the ordinary qualities of her death.
Hadiya, 15, was mourned at funeral services over the weekend as a young woman of great promise — an honor student at King College Prep who had performed with her school band in the Washington area during President Barack Obama's second inaugural in January. Sparkling. Funny. Warm.
The sense of loss and tragedy felt especially deep when she was cut down in a hail of wildly fired bullets on the afternoon of Jan. 29 as she stood with school friends seeking shelter from the rain in a South Side park. She became the new face of victims of gun violence at a time when the national debate over firearms was on full boil following the Dec. 14 schoolhouse massacre in Newtown, Conn.
Newtown — like Aurora, Colo., Tucson, Ariz, Virginia Tech and similar multifatality attacks — was atypical. Such rampages are still rare and feature the infuriating confluence of mental illness, sociopathy and access to devastatingly effective weapons.
They enrage, terrify and motivate us. But though they come to symbolize the ravages of firearms on society, statistically and practically they're not really the problem. At least not compared to the problem that the police narrative tells us resulted in the death of Hadiya Pendleton: Evildoers with easy access to handguns.
Not to say that previously law-abiding citizens in possession of their legally purchased firearms don't contribute to the carnage. They do, particularly when it comes to suicide and domestic violence.
But to say that the best way to prevent the shooting of the next bright, innocent student, the next hapless bystander or even the next not-so-innocent street thug caught up in the cycle of retribution and intimidation is to make it more risky and more difficult for the shooters to be carrying guns.
First, lock up those who violate gun-possession laws.
The story of Michael Ward, 18, the man police say fired haphazardly into the crowd that included Hadiya, shows an infuriating laxness on the part of authorities. Chicago officers arrested him in October, 2011 for carrying a loaded .38 special, but a judge sentenced him to probation for two years. And even though he'd been arrested on other charges three times during that probationary period, he remained free.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel, police Superintendent Garry McCarthy and Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez announced a get-tough plan Monday that included legislation to significantly lengthen sentences for violators of gun laws. Alvarez added that she has issued her prosecutors a directive to "seek only the maximum penalty allowable by the present law for gun offenders."
Then, choke off the flow of guns that so often puts them in the hands of people like Michael Ward.
Police have not yet said much about the weapon used to kill Hadiya, but it's an excellent bet that the gunman wasn't the original owner; that it was purchased, perhaps in a bulk buy, at a suburban, downstate or out-of-state shop or gun show and then sold, stolen or otherwise passed around until it ended up in that park on that day.
The same shadowy path was no doubt taken by the gun used to shoot Ward's co-defendant, Kenneth Williams, 20, in the arm last summer during a gang-related altercation. Police say Williams and Ward were attempting to avenge that shooting when they mistook the crowd of King students for rival gang members and Ward opened fire.
Mandatory background checks for all gun sales are a good start, as is the requirement, recently put forth by Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, to require citizens to report lost or stolen guns.
Hindering straw purchasers with limits on the number of guns an individual can buy in a given time period would probably help as well (collectors could apply for special exemptions).
Yes, the inner city needs more jobs, better education and increased gang intervention to detoxify the environment in which violence breeds.
But as we inch toward those solutions, let's do what we can to get the most effective instruments of murder out of the hands of those who are most prepared to use them.
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