by Miles Harvey
My biggest fear is getting shot down and just being laid out in the middle of the street somewhere. I don’t want to die like that: getting shot down, beaten to death or stabbed to death, just being laid out on the sidewalk, period. I want to die in my sleep, that’s all.
Being stretched out in the street, you gotta wait for the police to come. You’ll be out there for hours. Just out there. Too many of my guys got killed around us, so I see that. Too many times. I don’t want to go out like that. Everybody standing around, looking at my dead body.
—Interviewed by Stefanie Jackson-Haskin
Endnotes
12 See Jeremy Gorner, “Gang Factions Fuel Violent Year,” Chicago Tribune, Oct. 3, 2012, and Jeremy Gorner, “A City Battered by Killings Struggles to Find Answers,” Chicago Tribune, Dec. 30, 2012.
13 William R. Harper High School is at 6520 S. Wood St.
14 Officer Delvin Williams was 29 at the time of his death. See “City Officer Kills Self, Wounds Wife,” Chicago Tribune, Dec. 30, 2001.
15 The Pinckneyville Correctional Center is a medium-security prison in
downstate Illinois.
MY SON LAZARUS
PAMELA HESTER-JONES
The windows of Pamela Hester-Jones’ North Side apartment are filled with pictures of a little boy with a gap-toothed smile. Inside, the door that leads to her office is draped with a black curtain, and the walls are covered with missing children fliers, funeral programs, newspaper articles and more photos of the boy whose face haunts the window.
His name was Lazarus. In 2007, the 13-year-old was beaten to death on a busy corner of Albany Park, a North Side neighborhood that several gangs call home. His murder remains unsolved—but that has not stopped Hester-Jones from honoring her late son with the Lazarus Jones Save Our Children Campaign, which hopes to keep children off the streets and get them involved in the performing arts. It also acts as a service center for families that have experienced trauma through violence.
Hester-Jones, 42, is a thin woman with olive skin and a reluctant smile. She is nervous at the start of our interview, and busily walks about watering plants and organizing her desk. She tries to make small talk but doesn’t make eye contact; her hands anxiously tap the surface of her desk. Rarely does she talk about Lazarus’ murder or her own childhood, but today is
an exception.
I grew up in the West Side of Chicago. My dad put up a red, wooden fence. It was so high that we couldn’t look over it. I think my dad was doing the right thing for his children, because he didn’t want us to get in harm’s way or get into trouble. He kind of isolated us. We couldn’t go off of the block; we could only play in the yard and in front of the house. Back then, the crime wasn’t as bad as it is now. You can’t have your children outside anymore.
I let my son Lazarus go outside. I would never do it again.
My mom and dad met at Marshall High School. It was very interracial back in the late 1950s and early 1960s.16 My mom is Greek and German. My dad was African-American, from the South. They married and had seven Hesters. I was 11 years old when he passed away. He had the worst heart attack you can have. He left seven of us for my mom. She remarried and had my little sister and my little brother.
When I was 16, I had a baby. I never told my mother that I was pregnant. I was very small and super thin. They used to call me “Olive Oil,” like the cartoon. I had a basketball in my stomach; it was shaped just like it, a perfect, little basketball. My mom couldn’t notice because I wore this purple and maroon jacket all the time.
My girlfriend, Regina, she told my mom when I was eight months pregnant, and my mother called my older sister who lives in California. My sister flew in. I was sleeping in my bed, and they raised my shirt. I woke up and everyone was staring at my belly.
My mom said, “Oh, Pamela, you should have told me. You could have got an abortion.” I think she said that because I was young and maybe she didn’t know what else to do. Everybody was really supportive, but it was me doing all of the work. My days were over from playing outside or doing anything. Back then, I think I didn’t know what I was missing in my life, but my son Jasper was like my shelter. I’m so glad that I didn’t tell my mom and I’m so happy Jasper is here today. He’s a fine young man and I’m so proud of him.
Jasper’s father died in high school. He was playing Russian roulette with his friends and he got shot in the head. I went to the funeral, and that was my first experience with someone dying from an injury or being killed. I went to prom with his friends. They said, “No, you’re not going to miss your prom. Come with us.” I’m so glad I didn’t miss it. I was nominated for prom queen. But it was sad. We had our prom on a boat on Lake Michigan, and I remember going to the bathroom and crying. I was thinking about him. We would have gone together.
After graduation, I worked at Bennigan’s as a food-runner, and went to school for a nursing assistant certificate. I received two: one for advanced nursing and a regular one. Later, I went back to school to become a cardiologist technician. It was a great experience and I met a lot of doctors working at Evanston Hospital.
My last year there was when it happened to Lazarus. That was my last year ever doing that type of work, because my life has changed.
Antonio Jones came into my life when Jasper was 4 years old. We married and I had Lazarus. Antonio had gone to college and worked as a designer. He made the beautiful carpets and the clothes. He was a great father, a great provider. Lazarus and his dad did a lot of things together, like roller-skating and golfing.
Lazarus was 10 when Antonio went to jail. It was drugs. Attempt to deliver drugs, I guess that’s how they say it. His friends were doing it and he wanted to make more money. From my understanding, the police were building a case on him for two or three years. They finally arrested him and they gave him 20 years and he has to do 10. Never been in jail for nothing. I just couldn’t believe he got that much time. We got a divorce in 2009. We’re still the best of friends. He really didn’t do anything to me; you choose your own paths in life.
In 2007, Jasper, Lazarus and I were living near the corner of Foster and Lincoln Avenues in Lincoln Square. I wanted to be on the North Side, by my mom’s house, and I always lived where there were different cultures and different nationalities. I never wanted to live in an area where there was just one side, so my children always went to school where there were interracial children. Lazarus’ school was Budlong Elementary. There were Greeks, Asians and Latinos. It was a whole variety of cultures. Lazarus’ assistant principal was Greek and she used to call him “Black Greek.”
I wasn’t surprised that the day after he was killed, all of the children were at my apartment. The principal called and said, “Mrs. Jones, I heard that all of the students are at your apartment and I understand, but you let them know that they have to get back to the school.” So many children came to Lazarus’ funeral. He was so popular, even at such a young age—13. He had a lot of friends that loved him.
He loved art and loved to dance. He liked jazz music and he loved to draw. He loved to swim, he loved going to play golf, he loved going to the movies, he loved Hot Pockets and vanilla ice cream and those toy boxcars. He liked writing in journals that teachers gave him. The last entry he wrote in his journal was called “Where I Want to Be When I Get Older.” I recited some of his entries at the funeral, but I couldn’t finish reading the last one. I broke down. My oldest brother came up and read it for me.
Lazarus wanted to be the president.
On the corner near Budlong Elementary is Swedish Covenant Hospital.17 When the kids go that way, they can make a left and go over to the
Albany Park neighborhood. That’s where Lazarus was on the day the tragedy
happened.
I never knew about gangs being over in Albany Park. I didn’t realize that until the night of the incident. Some of Lazarus’ friends said that Lazarus met some little boy and he started playing with him. I guess the boy lived over in Albany Park and I guess tha
t’s how Lazarus ended up going there.
He had a 10 o’clock curfew. He always went to the CVS next door.
He’d buy candy and chips and sell them to the classmates at lunchtime. That’s how he’d make extra money for his pockets. But he didn’t come home that night.
I was on the recliner asleep when I got the knock on the door. My bell didn’t ring, so I was like, “What’s going on?” I opened the door and the police officer said, “Are you Lazarus’ mom? I need you to come with me.”
I said, “What happened?”
“Your son has been in an accident.”
I told him that I didn’t have a ride and that I was on bed rest because I was pregnant. “Can you please take me?” I said. And he did, but he didn’t tell me anything. The car was really quiet. No one said anything.
When I got to Children’s Memorial Hospital, they put me in a wheelchair and pushed me into a family room. I knew it was serious when they put me in there. It was a nice little room. Private. No TV, just chairs.
The nurse told me to call my immediate family, and I knew something was wrong. The detectives and the nurse came in and everybody was talking to me. The nurse said, “You want to go see how he’s doing?”
I said, “No.” I couldn’t go in there. All I was thinking was this: I was in a wheelchair, I was pregnant, I did not want to go into the room by myself because I did not feel like I could handle whatever I had to look at. I was horrified. I felt numb. I was thinking I was in a dream.
I called Antonio’s mom, my sister, my best friend and my brothers. I still didn’t want to go into the room first, so they went in and they said, “Pam, it looks really bad.” I was just crying all over the place. But then I said, “Okay, take me in. I have to go in.”
What happened was his injuries were so bad that he actually died on Lawrence Avenue and Troy Street in Albany Park. They found Lazarus in the fetal position. At the hospital, his blood was coming out of his ears and his rectum, and he was brain dead.
I had just lost a sister a year-and-a-half earlier to breast cancer and her face was so swollen. You know, like a Cabbage Patch Doll. I saw my son like that. I was like, “No, stop! This is not how Lazarus looks.” All of his injuries were on the left side. He had a black eye, because they kicked and beat him with a hammer.
I was holding Lazarus’ feet and they were so cold. I was telling him that everything would be all right.
The nurse came in and said, “We’re going to stop the machine.” I said, “No! No, absolutely not! I want Lazarus’ heart to stop on his own.”
So we waited. And he had a strong heart, because I always said he had my heart and my hair and my eyes.
It had to be three or four in the morning. His heart finally stopped and his spirit went away.
There were actually three killers. The night of the incident, Lazarus was out with two of his friends. The detectives said that Lazarus didn’t run, because he had no reason to. But Lazarus’ friend recognized the men. He said one of the men said, “We’re going to fuck him up.”
So his friends ran. I’m not mad at them. They were little kids; they were just scared. Those guys had weapons. They came out of a van with no windows. After it happened, one of Lazarus’ friends went into the Jerusalem Food and Liquor Store and told the owner to call the police. The owner had seen everything. After the murder, I actually was trying to get his liquor store closed down. That’s how furious and angry I was.
There is a bus stop there right where it happened. A bus came back and forth. Right across the street, there is a diner and a big old grocery store where they sell fresh fruits and meats. And all of this stuff was open. Right at that busy intersection, where everybody just looked like it was a parade when they saw a child getting beat like that.
Nobody did anything. No one called for help. They could have saved his life.
Those killers are still out there. There’s a $10,000 reward and no one has come forth. If the reward was $100,000, they wouldn’t come forth. You can’t put a price on someone who wants to keep silent.
But God sees everything. The detectives are on the case. I will be getting a phone call one day. I will be going to court like all of the other parents who have lost their children to gun violence.
On my wall I have a list. The year that Lazarus died, 2007, there were 32 children. That’s how many children followed after Lazarus. I keep track every time the news comes on of how many kids there are. It’s devastating.
I’ve been focusing on what we can do about the murderers walking on our streets. I worry about other people’s lives and their children. When someone hurts someone, whether they’re an adult or a child, why can’t they get caught? They’ve probably committed more crimes. I always ask myself, “How does the person sleep at night?”
The very next day after Lazarus left, every news channel was at my apartment. Every news channel you can think of, even the Latino news channel. I was like, “Open the door. Let them in.”
I was there, bad breath and all. I got up out of my bed and sat on my sofa. My little sister, Susie, she talked when I couldn’t talk.
I really wanted to die. I didn’t want to be here anymore. But because I was pregnant, I said, “This is for me to still be here.” I couldn’t harm a child.
When my water broke, I was like, “Oh, my baby is coming.” I don’t even think I was in the right state of mind to think that he wasn’t even due yet. I was 32 weeks when it happened. The doctors said the baby couldn’t come until I was 38 weeks, so it was six more weeks in order for him to be a full, developed child.
I couldn’t believe it. I said, “No way. You’re kidding me, right? No one stays in the hospital this long.” I stayed at the hospital where I worked. My room was nice and my co-workers would come and visit me.
It was a miracle delivery. Israel came the day that he was supposed
to come out. He was four pounds. He didn’t have any eyebrows when he came out.
I’m a single parent right now. Israel’s father wasn’t ready for marriage, so I couldn’t be with him. I know I had a baby out of wedlock, but what can I say? I’m not perfect.
I’m happy to have Israel. I think God was preparing me because of the loss of Lazarus. Israel gives me hugs and kisses out of the blue. Like in the middle of the day he’ll just be sitting there and come and say, “I love you, Mommy. Hug me back.”
I’ve never had any of my children give me so many hugs and kisses. But he will never take the place of Lazarus.
I let Lazarus go outside. He had a key. I figured since he was 13, he was getting big. Israel can never go outside. I will not allow it.
I want to have a safe haven for the children. I was a parent that was working and I really thought it was okay to let Lazarus go outside. But it’s not okay. They need to be somewhere where there is an adult.
Because of my hours at the hospital I couldn’t just say, “Okay, doctor. I have to take off these scrubs and I’m going to leave you in surgery by yourself.” I didn’t have someone to look after Lazarus. So I left Lazarus to be an adult at the age of 13.
We need programs; we need safe havens. There’s not really a safe haven in the North Side. The streets of Chicago are not safe, and parents need to be more aware. It’s up to us parents to stand together and take charge of our children. We need to stand together and let the gangs know that we’re not afraid of them. I think each area of Chicago should really do that. Even if the crime is not bad here, where I live, it could get bad.
The night after Lazarus died, I had a vision. I was sleeping in my bed. Lazarus’ room was right across the hall from mine. I could see the inside of his room from my bed.
I saw him. He came past and he threw his shirt over the door and grabbed his book bag. Then he smiled and walked out.
Sometimes, I don’t think I was asleep.
—Interviewed by Jacob Sabolo
Endnotes
16 A 1958 article in The Crisis, the official magazine of the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), estimated that Marshall’s “student body is about 50 percent Negro now.” See “De Facto Segregation in Chicago Public Schools: A Report from the Chicago Branch of the NAACP,”
The Crisis, February 1958, 87-93, 126-127.
17 Budlong Elementary School is at 2701 W. Foster Ave.
WHAT THE WATCHMAN SAW
COREY BROOKS
On Nov. 22, 2011, Pastor Corey Brooks climbed onto a rented construction lift and took it to the roof of a vacant two-story motel across the street from his New Beginnings Church in the 6600 block of South Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. Then he set up a tent, climbed inside, and began a vigil against gun violence.
No one paid much attention to Brooks at first, but as he continued to camp out during a Chicago winter, his rooftop vigil became national news. By the time he came down 94 days later—on Feb. 24, 2012—he had raised $450,000 to purchase and demolish the dilapidated motel, a longtime haven for drugs and prostitution. The last $100,000 of that money came from movie mogul Tyler Perry, who heard about Brooks on a radio program and wrote a check the very same day.
We visited Brooks twice in his tent, a cozy space into which he had packed an impressive array of furniture, space heaters, computer equipment and books. A steady stream of advisors and well-wishers kept stopping by to see the 42-
year-old pastor, who greeted them in a track suit and work boots, his hair
and beard growing a little nappy but his energy and spirits undiminished by the long odyssey.
We spoke with him a final time after he had left the roof and begun work on his next project: finding funds to build a community center where the motel once stood.
This started with a shooting. Actually, it started with ten shootings.
In 2011, I did ten funerals of young black men between the ages of 13 and 25 and none of those young men were covered in the press or anything like that. And then the 11th funeral was a young man by the name of Carlton Archer, 17 years old. And right before the service began, some of the children coming into our neighborhood for the funeral, they started being shot at by another group of kids.