CHICAGO — When Milagros Burgos heard about shoot and kill 8-year-old Melissa Ortega on Saturday, her immediate reaction was terrifying.
Then comes numbness.
She recalls going through a similar experience in 2014, when her 18-year-old daughter, Alexandria Imani Burgos, was killed by a stray bullet while sitting in the kitchen waiting for her brother. Burgos told The Daily Beast on Tuesday, the feeling returns every time she hears about another young person being killed by gun violence that years of promise from Chicago elected officials — and a New administration at City Hall—Cannot be resolved.
Burgos told The Daily Beast: “When you hear about these repeated crimes and feel like nothing has been done, it’s paralyzing other mothers.” “Every time this happens, it brings you back to that instant numbing sensation.”
Burgos is just one of dozens of mothers who have had to live without a child due to the onslaught of guns and gang violence that has plagued the Chicago area in recent years. And her patience was long gone.
“I am angry about many things. I am angry that my daughter’s case was never resolved. I am angry with some political officials who do not support gun safety legislation. I get angry when people think this kind of violence is normal. This is not normal,” said Burgos. “Like Melissa, these are innocent lives at stake. And more often than not, nothing happens to address these cases or make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
The Chicago Police Department said Saturday afternoon Ortega was killed by a stray bullet in the Little Village neighborhood of Chicago. The deadly incident has since gained national attention – and put renewed pressure on officials in Chicago, who have spent much of their time discussing the gun violence raging among them. , but, activists and residents said, serious progress has not been made.
The Chicago Mayor’s office did not respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment. However, on Monday, Mayor Lori Lightfoot insisted at a news conference that her office is doing everything it can, and that guns and gangs are the “primary drivers” of violence in Chicago. A police department spokesman directed The Daily Beast to ‘s previous comments Director David O. Brown about Ortega’s case “and gang violence in general.”
“We have to make sure we send a very clear message and hit every gang member in our city hard,” said Mayor Lightfoot. speak. “Clearly, this little girl is not the intended target, but given the fact that they are reckless and operate without regard for the sanctity of human life, we must stand up to stop them and use every means available. arbitrary tool to do it. . ”
In just the first three weeks of 2022, according to data obtained from the Chicago Police Department, 17 children under the age of 18 shot victims. In 2021, 421 children were victims of a gun.
Ortega, a third grader at Emiliano Zapata Academy who moved to the US from Mexico just six months ago, was walking with his mother on Pulaski Street when “they heard gunshots and discovered the 8-year-old had been hit bullet”. police said in a statement.
Like Burgos’ daughter, Ortega “had a gunshot wound to the head,” and was taken to a local hospital. She died less than two hours later. On Monday, Chicago police confirmed they had “a very close lead” on “known offenders” responsible for a shooting they say targeted a 26-year-old man, who suffered gunshots to the back.
Some local elected officials themselves also tend to only have a higher hand over the political food chain.
“The whole of Chicago is traumatized, regardless of whether you’ve experienced a personal loss, the city is feeling the pain that an eight-year-old child was killed,” Rep. La Shawn Ford told The Daily Beast. “It is clear and regrettable that there is no real urgency to support those who have been victims of violence in this city. Melissa’s death and shooting shows that we are all in danger and we can all fall victim if we don’t heal this city. Sometimes I think some other politicians forget that.”
Ford expressed its disappointment shortly after hosting a roundtable with about half a dozen family members of gun violence victims at the Thompson Center in Chicago on Tuesday. The discussion focused on how the city can combat its gun problem — and how lingering trauma has wreaked havoc in a community begging for help.
“There is so much to do in this city that sometimes people simply do nothing because it has so much to do. It’s really wearing it down,” said Angela Gregg, whose 4-year-old son was shot to death over Labor Day weekend while he was getting his hair cut, said in the roundtable.
For Elizabeth Ramirez, co-founder of activist group Parents for Peace and Justice, anger stems from the fact that while she wants to work with local elected leaders, like Lightfoot and Cook State Attorney Kim Foxx, they don’t appear to be interested in the partnership. (Foxx’s office did not respond to comment.)
“We tried to set up meetings, we wanted to work together. They just never responded to us,” Ramirez told The Daily Beast.
She notes that the cold shoulder is especially painful because she herself lost her 24-year-old son more than a decade ago when a gunman opened fire at his birthday party.
According to Ramirez, the gunmen are part of a local gang who believe The party is a celebration for their opponents. “My son is not in a gang. He was a good kid and wanted to be a coach. But these people just shoot to shoot,” Ramirez said.
According to a internal reports obtained is equal to Chicago Sun-Times, gang violence may also have been the cause of Ortega’s death. The report said the intended target was a member of the Gangster Two-Six street gang, which was recently locked in a deadly feud with rival Latin Saints and the Latin Kings street gang.
The intended target was arrested 13 times and convicted of two felonies, according to the police report. He is currently in critical condition at Mount Sinai Hospital in Chicago.
Graciela Garcia, a lead organizer of the Small Village Community Council and a former gang member, said the onslaught of violence had scared her into showing her daughter her hometown. .
“I have a 7-year-old daughter myself, and until recently, I felt it was safe to walk down the street with her so she could enjoy the community where I come from,” she told The Daily. Beast . “This horrifies me to consider bringing her here.”
State Representative Edgar Gonzalez Jr added that while Ortega’s death was “deeply heartbreaking,” the chilling impact it had on at least one other local girl was nearly unbearable.
“When we were all on the vigil… the little girl started to cry, saying she was afraid to leave the house because she didn’t want to be shot. Honestly, it just makes you feel frustrated,” Gonzalez told The Daily Beast. “What does it say about organizations that are supposed to support us when even small children don’t feel safe? They will feel safe riding a bike or playing card games on the street. Instead, they want to stay in, and I don’t blame them.”
Noting that he’s spoken directly to several community members about what is “being done to keep their children safe,” Gonzalez says the conversations rarely end with more requests. police, but rather asking to address “root causes beyond effective policy advocacy and claims. ”
“I have always emphasized the work of community organizations, especially those with street outreach teams that intervene and analyze potential incidents of violence, and the need to keep these programs in line. up and running and well funded,” added the state representative. “We also need to pursue and eliminate illegal firearms from our streets. Everyone is scared. I am also afraid. But it’s my duty to do something about it. This is not normal — we need to act now. ”
To this day, Mitzie Rivera said she still has not received a real answer about the murder of her son Enrique, especially Ms. Kim Foxx, Cook’s State Attorney, state.
For her, the killing of eight-year-old Melissa Ortega brought the frustration and pain of learning that the system continues to not mourn mothers.
“I am very upset with all these politicians. I think they were full of it,” she said. “I feel like they’re doing nothing for us…. They’re protecting these killers, these killers.”
Enrique was 29 years old and was on his way to work when he was shot and killed at the intersection of Narragansett Avenue and Irving Park Road. His mother describes him as a hard worker and “a teenager who loves to party and have fun.”
“My son is always out of trouble,” she told The Daily Beast.
These parents don’t sleep with the need to change national laws to curb gun violence. But they also don’t spare a local political class that often seems to cycle through a familiar dance of expressions of remorse and police crackdowns.
For Burgos, the pain of waiting for answers for years then only multiplied when he realized that gun violence in Chicago had claimed the life of another daughter.
“Melissa is just [walking] and my daughter just went to pick up her brother,” she said. “Society has failed our children.”
