Chicago Woman Gunned Down After Leaving Anti-Violence Fundraiser She Helped Plan

A 32-year-old woman heading home from an anti-violence fundraiser she helped organize was among five people killed and at least 35 others wounded in gun violence in Chicago over the weekend.

Leonore Draper was found shot inside her car outside her home in the city's West Pullman neighborhood about 10:30 p.m. Friday.

The Chicago Sun-Times reports that about an hour before her death, Draper, who worked as a budget analyst for Chicago Public Schools, had attended a fundraiser she helped organize for Project Orange Tree. The youth-led anti-violence group was founded last year by King College Prep students after their classmate, Hadiya Pendleton, was killed in a shooting that attracted international media attention.

King College Prep senior Nza-Ari Khepra, a Project Orange Tree leader, told DNAinfo Chicago "the impression I got was that she was a good person trying to do good things. Few people try to help their communities like she was."

Draper's family released a statement to the Chicago Tribune, writing, "Our prayer is that the community will join us and pray that God will move in his own way to put an end to these senseless killings in Chicago."

Four other people were also killed in shootings over the weekend in Chicago, including 21-year-old Cindy Bahena, who was gunned down while she was riding in a car about 12:35 a.m. Sunday in Logan Square, the Sun-Times reports. She was pronounced dead at an area hospital shortly after the shooting.

Also killed over the weekend were two young men fatally shot in separate shootings early Saturday.

Jaquez Williams, 17, was standing outside when an individual dressed in all black reportedly approached him from behind and shot him in the head about 2:05 a.m. in the city's West Side Austin neighborhood, the Tribune reports. Williams was pronounced dead at the scene.

Martarvian Emery, 21, was inside the kitchen of an apartment in the Back of the Yards neighborhood when he and a 19-year-old woman were shot from outside the home about 1:15 a.m., according to DNAinfo. The 19-year-old woman survived being shot in the leg, but Emery died on the scene.

On Friday afternoon, an off-duty police officer fatally shot 86-year-old Joe Huff Jr. in what police have called a neighborhood dispute on the city's South Side, according to Patch. Huff's 90-year-old wife was seriously wounded in the incident, which is currently being reviewed, as all police-involved shootings in Chicago are, by the Independent Police Review Authority.

As of early Monday afternoon, no one is in custody for any of the killings -- or for any of the at least 35 non-fatal shootings in Chicago over the weekend.

Meanwhile, the Sunday stabbing of a 40-year-old man in the city's Lawndale neighborhood marked the city's 100th homicide so far this year, the RedEye reports based on preliminary police data.