Surrounded by dozens of playing children, Schanna Gayden and her cousin lingered at a Logan Square playground Monday evening, enjoying a snack from a nearby fruit cart. They heard what sounded like firecrackers, and Katie Wilson, Schanna’s cousin, started to run. When she looked back, Schanna, 13, was lying bleeding on the ground.
Police say Schanna was caught in the crossfire of rival gangs, who claim the street that runs through the Funston Elementary playground as the border of their turf. Police on Tuesday arrested a 19-year-old reputed gang member who they say shot Schanna and have another person in custody who might be involved.
Schanna, who would have been an 8th grader at Ames Middle School this fall, died early Tuesday morning in Children’s Memorial Hospital. She is the second Chicago Public Schools student to die since the school year ended this month; 32 students died during the school year.
In a working-class corner of Logan Square that has seen only trickles of the condominium development rushing through the West Side community, Schanna’s death underscored long-festering problems that still plague pockets of some gentrifying neighborhoods.
“My baby was lying in the grass, and I was powerless to do anything,” said Rita Sallie, Schanna’s mother. When she heard the shots from inside her home, Sallie ran to the playground and found her daughter surrounded by police and stunned onlookers.
“I can’t fathom it,” she said. “Where can I move in this city where my remaining children will be safe?”
Schanna was shot near West McLean and North Central Park Avenues, a known border between two rival gangs — the Imperial Gangsters and Spanish Cobras — and the site of ongoing turf battles, gang officers said.
Shootings aren’t rare in the area of modest brick two-flats surrounding the playground, said David Cassel, executive director of the Alliance of Local Service Organizations, a violence-prevention group.
Although shootings have declined in recent years, from 50 in 2002 to about nine last year, “the start of this year has really brought the trend back up,” Cassel said.
Speculation on violence
As a sign of how the area’s rapid changes infiltrate discussion on nearly everything that happens in Logan Square, community activists speculated that the trend was partly connected to the wave of condominium development rolling through Logan Square, with gang members fighting over less and less space.
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“The space between them is getting a lot tighter,” Cassel said. “You see one gang on one block and another gang on another block, where there used to be larger areas between them.”
Police and local residents disputed that theory.
Unlike the narcotics or money-related wars between some gangs, police say these two gangs fight over pride and perceived slights, or just for the right to walk down a particular street. The randomness of their fights makes policing even more difficult, they said.
Nellie Rosa, who lives across the street from the playground at McLean and Central Park, said she’s witnessed firsthand the gang violence that has pervaded the streets around her home. When she heard the shots Monday evening, she and her three small children dived for the floor of their ground-level apartment.
This morning, her 9-year-old son refused to walk across the street to summer school at Funston Elementary without her, she said.
“That park was full of kids when this happened,” Rosa said. “If my kids can’t play in a playground across the street, I don’t know where they can play.”
At the playground on Tuesday, the slides and swings were empty, as residents, clutching their children’s hands, stopped by to place cards, teddy bears, flowers and a basketball on the ground in a makeshift memorial to Schanna. Later Tuesday, a crowd of about 125 gathered for a nighttime vigil.
“She was my little princess and I’m going to miss her a great deal,” said her father, Schann Gayden, as he stared at the growing mound of tributes. “I wouldn’t wish this on anyone’s family.”
Throughout the city, city leaders and community activists expressed anger at the senseless death of yet another Chicago child.
“There was a 13-year-old out at the park … then a 19-year-old punk with a gun,” said Mayor Richard Daley at an unrelated news conference Tuesday morning. “People need to be outraged.”
More resources sought
Curbing the violence will take more than raising voices and awareness, said Tio Hardiman, director of mediation services at Cease Fire, an organization focused on curbing street violence.
“We can march all day long but if we don’t provide the adequate resources to the men and women involved in the street life, we’re going to keep running into problems like this,” Hardiman said. “Over the past 30 days we’ve had marches all over the city, but what are the people going to do after the march ends?”
Sallie said she knew that dozens of Chicago students had been killed this year, but never imagined her child would be one of the victims.
“Thirty-four children. What can I say that the parents of those children haven’t already said? No child should be buried by their parents,” Sallie said.
She described Schanna as an honor-roll student who loved math and basketball and who was excited about attending Taste of Chicago this weekend.
Benjamin Zayas, Schanna’s basketball coach at Ames Middle School, said she was a natural leader and athlete. Students gravitated toward her smile and positive attitude, he said.
On Tuesday, Ames students attending summer school seemed numbed by the news, he said.
“It’s scary how exposed these students are to violence,” he said. “It doesn’t make any sense. She was such a great person .
., it breaks my heart.”
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