Eduardo Jaramillo was screaming for help in a West Pullman apartment on Chicago's South Side when shots rang out Thursday night, silencing the 23-year-old's cries forever.
Jaramillo was shot in the head and collapsed outside the second-floor apartment above the Faith & Love Fellowship Church in the 300 block of East Kensington Avenue sometime around 8:30 p.m. Thursday, the Sun-Times reports. He was pronounced dead shortly thereafter at an area hospital.
There appeared to be a heavy gang presence around the crime scene, both in passersby and symbols and signs marking territory in the area, according to the Tribune. Police say an “autonomous” gang faction claims the area surrounding the murder.
As Jaramillo's death adds to Chicago's homicide rate which is closing in fast on 100 deaths thus far in 2013 — with an overwhelming number reportedly connected to gang violence — Republican Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois wants help from the feds to take down the city's most violent street gangs.
"I would like to crush them, because they shot Hadiya," Kirk told Fox Chicago in an exclusive interview.
In February, Kirk said he would name a bipartisan gun safety bill after Hadiya Pendleton, the slain Chicago teen who was gunned down just days after performing for President Obama's second inauguration.
Kirk told Fox federal intervention has worked for Chicago in the past — 80 years ago when agencies rallied to bring down Al Capone, and again in the '80s with the Gangster Disciples.
Kirk continued, "We have that Al Capone image," telling Fox that when he's traveled abroad strangers will do things like pantomime shooting a Tommy gun when he reveals where he's from. Kirk believes the gangster image "hurts our economic growth."
"My top priority is to arrest the Gangster Disciple gang, which is 18,000 people," Kirk said. "I would like to a mass pickup of them and put them all in the Thomson Correctional Facility, I will be proposing this to the assembled federal law enforcement: ATF, DEA and FBI."
In April, Kirk met with Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy to devise strategies that would curb gang violence and the illegal flow of weapons into the city.
Related
Before You Go
