Dajae Coleman

Dajae Coleman spent part of Saturday at an Evanston gym doing what he loved: teaching basketball to younger players. But just hours after he left the gym, Dajae, 14, was shot to death whil…

e walking home from a party less than a mile from home, police said. Dajae was “one of those kids that’s always willing to help out in the community,” said Jetter Gibson, his former coach with the Evanston Pride Feeder Basketball team. “He wasn’t in the streets.” About 10:30 p.m., police responding to a call of gunshots in the 1500 block of Church Street, found Dajae, a freshman at Evanston Township High School, fatally shot. Cherylette Hilton said she heard a couple of gunshots while driving nearby Saturday night. At Church Street, she saw a group of about 10 teenagers and heard three more shots, Hilton said. Police had released little information about the incident Sunday evening. Dajae, of the 1900 block of Foster Street in Evanston, was often in the gym preparing for his first year of high school hoops. “He just idolized basketball players,” said his mother, Tiffany Rice. “Everything was basketball, basketball, basketball.” Gibson said the young point guard was talented and a joy to coach. “He was the quietest kid,” Gibson said. “Every time you told him to do something, it was, ‘Yes, sir.’ A very respectful kid. One of the nicest kids that I’ve known.” The boy’s father, Richard Coleman, gave Dajae permission to go to the party. He was to call his father for a ride home. “How you gonna tell a kid with good grades, star basketball player, ‘No, you can’t go out?'” Richard Coleman said. “The last thing he said to me was, ‘Yeah, I’m gonna call you, Dad.’ (He) never called.” Kim Jones, 27, said she was supervising her niece’s 17th birthday party when two girls got into an argument. “As soon as the two girls started, I told them they have to leave because I didn’t want nothing to happen,” she said. “I said: ‘Thank you all for coming. Its time to go.'” The party started between 7:30 and 8 p.m. and ended around 10 p.m., Jones said. The entire high school was invited via Facebook but about 100 people showed up, said Chastity Jones, Kim Jones’ niece. Kim Jones said she didn’t see anyone with a gun or serve any alcohol. On Sunday, some students gathered at the high school, where administrators promised to have grief counselors on hand Monday. Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl and two aldermen walked the streets, reassuring residents and meeting with Coleman’s relatives. Others wondered why it happened to Dajae, an honor roll student at Haven Middle School. “This is devastating,” said Tyrone Wilson Sr., who coached Dajae’s eighth-grade football team. “He’s like the last kid you would think this would happen to. He always minded his business and loved hanging with his teammates.” Wilson had known Dajae since the boy was in elementary school. “He was a game-changer, on the field and in life,” Wilson said. “Athletically, he was very gifted, one of the best players on the team every year, not just athletically but characterwise. He’s a real stand-up kid.”

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/suburbs/evanston/chi-14yearold-killed-in-evanston-20120923,0,5892228.story

 

KENNEDY FITZGERALD MCLAURIN jr.

Rilya Alert Cancel:   KENNEDY FITZGERALD MCLAURIN jr. is deceased.

He was murdered by his body has not been found!!

April Hobbs-Cox, speaking on behalf of McLaurin’s family at a news conference Friday afternoon, thanked police and the public for their support in keeping the case in the publi…

c eye. “Thank you all for your prayers and support in helping locate Ken and bring him home,” Hobbs-Cox said. “(The family asks) that you continue to keep them in prayer and continue to keep them lifted up.”

http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/11578072/

Yusuf E’Miy Stewart-Ali Jr

‘Killer’: Daquan Davis,, has been accused of  shaking his girlfriend’s six-month-old son, Yusuf E’Miy Stewart-Ali Jr.,  to death as he looked after him while the boy’s mother was at work

‘I picked up my son to see if he was  sleeping,’ she told Press of Atlantic  City. ‘I noticed there was blood and  that he wasn’t  breathing. He was cold and stiff. I said, “My son is dead.  My  son is dead”.’

She told NBC  10that, after the grisly discovery,  Davis acted as if nothing had happened.

‘He sat there saying, “Everything  will be  alright. We’re in this together. I know you’re hurting. I am  here for you”,’  Stewart said.

She called authorities and they pronounced  the boy dead on their arrival at the apartment. Davis  was arrested after authorities determined the baby  had been shaken, prosecutors  said.

Heartbroken: Ebony Stewart said she returned home to  find her son purple and not breathing

Victim: Friends and family said the youngster had  changed his mother’s life for the better

‘They questioned me and asked me if my son  ever had bruises before,’  Stewart told the Press.

‘I told them my son didn’t have any bruises.  Then they  showed me a picture of bruises on his stomach. That’s when they told  me  he died of broken ribs.’

Davis, who graduated from high school in  June, was charged with aggravated manslaughter and  endangering the welfare of a  child. He will appear in court on Monday  and is held on $750,000 bail.

Stewart said her  boyfriend’s full name is  actually Da’Quon Callaway and he is not the baby’s father.  She met him a month  ago and said they had been living together at the apartment since.

‘He only watched my son two or three times,’  she told the Press. ‘Other than that, I was always with him.’

Scene: The couple had only been together a month and  were living at an apartment in Atlantic City, pictured

Friends and family remembered the happy  youngster and how he had changed his mother’s life.

‘He smiled all the time and cooed,’ Yusuf’s  grandmother, Tracey  Stewart, 52, said. ‘He had just learned to sit up.’

‘The baby changed her life completely,’  Andrew Stewart, 26, said of his sister. ‘He helped her to do  all that. She was  getting her future together. Now, that has been taken  away from  her.’

Ebony Stewart said it was too painful to  think about making funeral arrangements for her child.

‘I know I have to do it,’ she said. I just  haven’t thought about it yet. He was my firstborn.’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2204526/Teen-shakes-girlfriends-6-month-old-baby-death–acted-like-happened.html

 

 

Jaesean Rusher

GRANITE CITY • Little Jaesean Rusher was a favorite among those who knew him in his neighborhood and at the Jesus Place Mission Church charities, where his grandmother volunteers.

On Monday, the 21-month-old toddler was murdered in what law enforcement authorities called one of the worst cases of child abuse in decades in that area. John Holmon III was charged Tuesday with first-degree murder. Holmon, 39, who police said was Jaesean’s mother’s boyfriend, was being held without bond.

On Tuesday night, several dozen grieving friends and family members held a candlelight vigil and prayed on the front yard and porch of the house where Jaesean lived in the 2000 block of 14th Street. The baby’s mother, Dollie Rusher, 29, and grandmother, Tommie Rusher, 68, wept as friends tried to console them.

On the day of the murder, Jaesean’s mother had left about 5 a.m. to catch a bus to her first day of cosmetology school.

The baby’s grandmother left at 7:10 a.m. as she usually does to go to Jesus Place to volunteer to cook for the homeless. After that, she went to volunteer to help at the church’s Free Store, which hands out clothes, personal hygiene items and furniture to help the needy.

Two friends, Richard Hinojosa and Ryan Brown, who run the Free Store, brought her home about midday. There she encountered the tragedy involving the grandson she called “Bug.”

Police said they found the child lifeless when they were called to the home about 1 p.m. Monday. Jaesean was taken to Gateway Regional Medical Center and pronounced dead at the hospital. A preliminary autopsy showed the child died from blunt head trauma and closed head trauma, the Madison County coroner said.

“This is a crime of unspeakable nature,” said Madison County State’s Attorney Thomas Gibbons.

He wouldn’t be specific about the details of the boy’s death, but said it was a case of “exceptionally brutal and heinous injuries to such a young boy.”

Law enforcement officers involved in the case echoed Gibbons. They described Holmon as a “monster” at a news conference Tuesday.

‘”It tugs at the heart strings of law enforcement officers when such innocence can be taken by such violent means,” said Granite City Police Chief Richard Miller.

Gibbons said the charges would bring a minimum sentence of 60 to 100 years if Holmon is convicted, but prosecutors are exploring seeking a life sentence.

At the vigil, some of Jaesean’s toys were in the front yard, and neighbor Sue Scott brought over a toy teddy bear and toy dog that had belonged to her own grandson.

“I wish I could do more,” Scott said. “Jaesean was such a sweet little kid.”

Daria Beasley, a close friend of Tommie Rusher, known as “Mama,” said: “Mama always was talking about her little ‘Bug.’ He was her life.”

John Womack, who considered himself like an uncle to the child, and Trisha Quillen, called “Auntie TT” by Jaesean, were among the mourners. Her eight-year-old son wants to be a pall bearer at the funeral.

Jaesean’s mother helped to make a sign for the vigil.

“Taking our life and heart away,” Dollie Rusher wrote as she sobbed. “Stop Child Abuse.  We love you Bug.”

Tracy Wiser, a friend from Jesus Place, said that Jaesean would be protected now.

“The baby’s babysitters now are angels.”

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/granite-city-man-charged-in-death-of-girlfriend-s-young/article_992bbf28-fc5a-11e1-bc3b-001a4bcf6878.html

Taquan A. Willis

King Quan is what Alisha Johnson called her 14-month-old son the day he was born, and that’s how she referred to him Saturday when he was eulogized six days after authorities said he was beaten to death by a 9-year-old boy. Taquan A. Willis.died last Sunday after he was found beaten, allegedly by a member of the family they were living with in Cahokia. The 9-year-old was charged with first-degree murder Tuesday in juvenile court, but authorities did not release his name nor any specifics about the case when they announced the charge Friday.
Family members attending Taquan’s funeral Saturday said they are not sure what happened in the house in the 300 block of Isabell Road, where the boy was found unconscious on the floor. Relatives say he was in the home with his two brothers, ages 2 and 3, and a friend of his mother’s, along with her boyfriend, a 12-year-old boy and the 9-year-old charged in Taquan’s death. Johnson’s aunt, Jessica Jackson, said the 9-year-old boy is a relative of Melissa Wilbourn, whom family members say Johnson had lived with for about a month. Jackson said Wilbourn told relatives she heard a groaning sound and went to check on the kids, who were in a back room, asleep on the floor. She went back to bed, then heard the sound again and went back into the room and called out to Taquan. “She said she picked him up and he was limp,” Jackson said. Jackson said Wilbourn said she told her boyfriend something was wrong with Taquan and called 911. Taquan was then taken to a hospital, she said. Jackson said she knows the 9-year-old and doesn’t think he would have beaten Taquan to death. Wilbourn could not be reached for comment Saturday. After the funeral service at New Jerusalem Pentecostal Ministries in Centreville, Taquan’s father, Todd A. Willis Jr., said he would always remember two special things about the boy. “I loved his smile and the way he poked his lips out to give me a kiss,” he said softly after helping to carry his son’s small white casket with white flowers and blue ribbons to a white hearse. Johnson said she nicknamed the boy King Quan because he was her “King.” He was the youngest of her three children. His smile was on her mind on Saturday. “He was just a happy baby,” she said. “He would bring a lot of joy to you. He smiled and danced.” She said “SpongeBob SquarePants” was his favorite television show. She said she didn’t want to talk about how he died. She was out with a friend when she received a call telling her to get to the hospital. She said her baby never regained consciousness. She said she had only known Wilbourn about a year and hasn’t talked to her since the day her son died. __

_ http://lakeexpo.com/news/top_stories/article_a0f95a5a-f591-11e1-8600-0019bb2963f4.html