Two boys wandered by the Roseland neighborhood memorial to the city's murder victims on Wednesday, stopping briefly to gaze at the list of 220 youths whose names are sketched on bricks.
"I just hope my name doesn't end up on one of these," said Tylar Williams, 14.
Roseland is a neighborhood where young people fall to violence all too often.
Early Wednesday, Ivan Burns Jr., 9, was shot in the head and critically wounded as he fetched his dog from his backyard.
The boy's father said they waited until after 3 a.m. to go outside because he had been hearing too much gunfire earlier.
"We got out and bam, I heard two shots. Before I even locked the door, I saw my son fall," Ivan Burns Sr. said.
Roseland, a Far South Side community that was once middle-class, has become home to a host of urban ills that include unemployment, gangs and poverty.
Over the last decade, Roseland lost more than 8,000 residents, according to the 2010 U.S. census. The 15 percent population loss occurred despite an influx of new residents who moved there when Chicago Housing Authority high-rises were torn down.
The memorial at 117th Street and Michigan Avenue bears names of young people from across the city, but Roseland is well-represented.
There is a brick for Blair Holt, 16, who was killed in 2007 while trying to shield a friend from gunfire on a CTA bus. And there is one for Derrion Albert, 16, a Fenger High School student whose beating death in 2009 was captured on video.
Both murders became rallying cries to end the violence. But two years later, Roseland residents say little has changed.
"People need to stop with this senseless shooting," said Ivan's aunt, Chiquita Burns. "They need to realize that our people are losing their world over some (nonsense) that other people are doing."
Ivan's family kept vigil throughout the day at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where the boy was in critical but stable condition. No one was in custody Wednesday night.
"In Roseland, it's bad," his father said. "They shoot a lot around there."
Residents of the neighborhood have grown increasingly frustrated by the endless violence and what they consider to be empty promises by city officials to end the shootings. Though crime is down in Roseland, as it is throughout the city, the Calumet Police District that covers the neighborhood remains one of the most violent in Chicago.
In his inaugural address in May, Mayor Rahm Emanuel vowed to make Chicago's streets safer and made specific reference to the memorial to murder victims in Roseland.
The memorial was erected by Kids Off the Block, an organization that provides activities to keep children in Roseland and other crime-ridden communities off the streets.
There is no space on the memorial for new names, although nearly 165 more could be added.
"What kind of society have we become when we find ourselves paying tribute not only to soldiers and police officers for doing their job, but to children who were just playing on the block?" Emanuel said in his speech.
"That memorial does more than mourn the dead. It shames the living. It should prod all of us — every adult who failed those kids — to step in, stand up and speak out."
Also in May, Emanuel announced he was putting more police officers on beat patrols in the city's most troubled neighborhoods, including Roseland, by reassigning 500 officers.
But the increased police presence has not stopped a recent rash of shootings there.
On the Fourth of July, Martel Field, 17, a junior at Prologue Charter High School, was shot to death on the street. In May, Larry Parks, 16, was fatally shot in the back. Days earlier, a fight escalated into gunfire, killing Markell Stribling, 16, and wounding another teen.
"It's gang warfare, and it's all about territory," said the Rev. Gregory Livingston, a community activist and pastor of Mission of Faith Baptist Church in Roseland. "They are fighting over resources."
Livingston, a former national field secretary for the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, said he would like to see Emanuel hold a summit that brings together residents, city officials and gang members to talk about solutions.
"We need a town hall meeting where we can sit down and talk about what needs to be done to stop the shootings," he said. "We need to ask them, 'What do you need to have that will make you put down your guns?'"
Wednesday night, a couple of dozen people joined in a march and prayer vigil, organized by the anti-violence group CeaseFire, that began at 107th Street and Wentworth Avenue where Fields was killed Monday and ended at the first block of East 100th Place, where Ivan was shot.
Diane Latiker, the executive director of Kids Off the Block, said when politicians cut social service programs for youths, it increases the chances for them to lead troubled lives on the streets.
"We cannot protect the innocent young people until we get those off the street who are not innocent," Latiker said.
Violence increases every summer, leaving a psychological impact on the young people in Roseland, said Ron Migalski, vice president of clinical services for SGA Youth and Family Services.
"What contributes to this violence in the summer is unstructured time for adolescents, which leads to the propensity for high-risk behavior," said Migalski, whose group runs an initiative that provides school services for at-risk youths and their families.
An SGA survey in March found that 49 percent of elementary school-age children in Roseland never feel safe on their way to or from school. The majority of them — 59 percent — said they have close friends in gangs. Another 47 percent said they wanted help to avoid gangs, but most did not know who to ask.
Robert Douglas, founder of the Saving Our Neighborhood Foundation, a grass-roots group that focuses on economics and education, said it has been difficult to get the community to rally behind efforts to keep the children safe.
"Parents are not parenting, leaders are not leading, and we have adolescents running reckless with no guidance," Douglas said. "When it gets dark in Roseland, there are only two elements out, the predators and the prey."
Gerald Sprattlin, 24, admitted he has been involved in violent crime but said he has learned to stay away from negative influences in the neighborhood.
"When I look at that memorial I cry sometimes," he said. "It's a shame that they're so young, that they never got a chance to utilize their gifts like they're supposed to."
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