Our View: Help stop city's cycle of violence
One group of acquaintances with Anderson connections has been devastated by murders.
In particular, what should have been a high point of Ty Willis' high school basketball career was transformed by tragedy.
In 2022, the Anderson High School Indians celebrated their first Madison County basketball title since 2014. Willis, who was named The Herald Bulletin's Basketball Athlete of the Year, dedicated his game to Devin Swain and Swain's cousin, Courtney Cox.
Swain was murdered at a family gathering on New Year's Eve 2021. Cox died in October 2021 when she was shot by her boyfriend in Atlanta, Georgia. The boyfriend then died in a shootout with police.
But the trail of tragedies had not reached its end.
In February, a sister of Devin Swain — 26-year-old mother of two Dayla Swain — was shot to death in Anderson as she stood by a car talking to a witness in yet another murder. Dayla was most likely an innocent bystander.
The witness was not killed in the February attack. Four young males have been charged in connection to the fatal shooting. One of them is allegedly a member of a Chicago-based crime gang.
This insanity is traumatic.
The cycle of violence not only destroys families but reaches like venomous tentacles into their communities and, in a larger sense, across the city of Anderson, which struggles against its reputation for violent crime.
Thankfully, Anderson police and the Madison County Prosecutor's Office are working diligently and with focus in making arrests in these crimes.
But those agencies find themselves far too often working in reaction to fatal shootings.
Last September, an otherwise well-meaning but disorganized group sponsored a west side block party. After the party, some hangers-on were involved in a shooting that injured eight people.
A moment for peace turned disastrous.
With the threat of being shot, some folks are hesitant to 'work' with police or even acknowledge that they witnessed a crime.
It is up to Anderson families to take control of this nightmare.
Look around the community and see if there is a social challenge affecting residents that could use your help to resolve.
Address the problem by establishing positive relationships with neighbors.
Consider cleaning up trashy streets and parks. Make a home with strong morals, perhaps faith-based guidance. Raise children with clear anti-violence principles. Talk frequently with your kids to keep open communication. Ask them if they feel bullied, particularly in regard to joining gangs.
Parents know the basics. Let's not just rely on law enforcement to react to crime. Now is the time for parents and relatives to instill concepts of right and practice, as they say, what we preach to our children.
It might impede a cycle of violence that is on our doorstep and harming us all.
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Chicago cop shot and killed by fellow officer in friendly fire incident during tactical operation
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Chicago police determine slain officer was unintentionally shot by fellow cop
CHICAGO — Chicago police Officer Krystal Rivera was mistakenly shot by a fellow cop during a confrontation with an armed suspect that took her life Thursday, police have announced. In a statement late Friday, the department said that an investigation had reached the conclusion that Rivera was struck by friendly fire. 'As released in yesterday's preliminary statement, an officer discharged his weapon during the encounter with an armed offender,' the statement read. 'Further investigation revealed the only weapon discharged during this incident was the weapon of the officer, whose gunfire unintentionally struck Officer Rivera.' Rivera was widely praised Friday. Earlier in what would be her final shift, Rivera took two guns off the street, authorities said, only to come face-to-face with a rifle later that night. Rivera, 36, a four-year veteran with a young daughter who lived in the Irving Park neighborhood on the Northwest Side, was killed after the Gresham (6th) District tactical team she was part of tried to conduct an investigatory stop on a person believed to have a weapon about 9:50 p.m. Thursday in the 8200 block of South Drexel Avenue. 'The investigation into the aggravated assault of the police officers by the armed offender who pointed the rifle remains ongoing,' the police statement read. 'This offender remains in custody. Detectives also continue to investigate the circumstances that led to the investigative stop preceding the encounter. At this time, no further information is available while the investigation continues.' The statement concluded with a request for prayers for Rivera's family and her partner. An autopsy had found that Rivera was shot in the back. The first Chicago police officer to be killed in the line of duty this year, Rivera was mourned by city officials and her fellow officers, who praised her work ethic and asked Chicagoans to keep her family in their prayers. 'Our officer was young, vibrant and a hard worker,' police Superintendent Larry Snelling said, speaking from the University of Chicago Medical Center early Friday. 'She was a working police officer trying to keep the streets safe.' Flanked by department brass, Mayor Brandon Johnson and other city and state officials, Snelling gave some details about the shooting, but did not offer a full picture of exactly how the shooting unfolded. In response to a reporter's question about the gunfire, Snelling said investigators were waiting on a warrant to search the apartment where the shooting happened. 'Here's the deal: We won't know that until the search warrant is served and we are able to go through that apartment and collect more evidence. The evidence that we collect usually … gives a story of what occurred in there,' Snelling said. 'So until we have all of that information we can't rely on just one source at this time.' Snelling in a news conference that took place hours after the event said the officers first tried to stop someone thought to be armed when the individual ran into an apartment, and the officers followed, he said. There, Snelling said, the team encountered a second person armed with a rifle. One of the officers fired a gun 'at some point' during the confrontation, he said, and another officer was shot, later succumbing to her injuries at University of Chicago Medical Center. 'When the officers followed into that location they were then confronted by a second person who was in that apartment who was armed with a rifle pointed at the officers,' Snelling said. 'At some point the officer discharged the weapon. Our officer was struck. She was then transported by assisting units to the hospital here where she later succumbed to her wounds.' The two people in the apartment ran away and were arrested shortly afterward, Snelling said, though he said officials had 'several' people in custody in connection with the shooting. The department did not specify exactly how many people were in custody as of Friday afternoon. A third officer hurt his wrist and was listed in fair condition, according to a police statement. Investigators recovered three weapons at the scene and were still reviewing body-worn camera footage, Snelling said, and the Civilian Office of Police Accountability was investigating the shooting. After the shooting, police officers took their wounded colleague to the hospital in a squad car, which crashed and caught fire on the way there because of what Snelling described as a malfunction with the vehicle. Another squad car finished the trip, he said, and the officers in the first car were 'doing fine.' 'The way that she worked, it was evident that she did love her job,' Snelling said. 'She wanted to make Chicago a better place.' Rivera's mother, reached by phone, declined to comment. In a statement posted to social media, the mayor asked Chicagoans to keep Rivera's family in their prayers, especially her young daughter who will 'who will miss her mom for the rest of her life.' Rivera had an 'unmatched work ethic,' Johnson said. 'Officer Rivera was a hero who served on the force for four years. She had a long career in front of her. A bright future was stolen from her family and from her loved ones,' he said in the statement. Family friend Alicia Headrick described Rivera as someone who was 'unapologetically herself and wanted everyone else to be able to tap into that as well.' Headrick, 28 and a Grundy County sheriff's deputy, said she mostly stayed in touch with Rivera via social media. While they occasionally talked about working for two very different law enforcement agencies, Headrick mainly remembered Rivera cheering her on and likened her to an older sister. Rivera had been a single mother for some time and was ferociously independent, she said. '(Rivera) just always wanted to make a life and career for herself and for her daughter,' Headrick said. 'She had a very pure heart that just wanted to serve other people.' The last Chicago officer to suffer fatal injuries on the job was Enrique Martinez, 26. Martinez, who was also assigned to the same Gresham District as Rivera, was fatally shot in November in the 8200 block of South Ingleside Avenue— just one street east of where Rivera was killed Thursday. Outside the hospital early Friday, squad cars lined Cottage Grove Avenue for blocks in every direction. A peer support officer walked people, some of them in tears, in and out of the ambulance bay as others in uniform exchanged hugs in the street. In Chatham, the crime scene spanned multiple blocks as law enforcement agencies fanned out in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. Cook County sheriff's deputies walked up and down Maryland Avenue near East 83rd Street with rifles and canine units while tactical teams searched nearby alleys with flashlights. As squad cars lined the streets for several blocks in every direction, a police helicopter circled the area, beaming a searchlight. Residents walked their dogs and filmed the scene on their phones, protesting when officers asked them to back up to Cottage Grove so they could expand the crime scene. Officers appeared to zero in on an alley on the west side of Ingleside. A resident leaned out the window of a courtyard building across the street and asked if they needed to get in. Detectives begin combing the front yard with flashlights. Just before noon Friday, a two-man crew arrived at the Gresham District station to affix purple and black bunting on the building's facade, in keeping with CPD tradition after an officer is killed on the job.
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