Soldier Shot, Killed While Home on Leave
Harvey resident fought for nation, but was killed at home
Chicago Sun-Times
Simeon Sanders was shot in the back while he was home on leave from the military.
When 21-year-old Harvey resident Simeon Sanders left for college and then joined the Army, he was leaving to escape the violence in his neighborhood. But Thursday night it wasn’t war that took the soldier’s life; it was a bullet from his own hometown.
On the spot where Sanders collapsed and died in front of the Harvey Community Center, loved ones paid tribute to the solider by leaving messages and candles on the sidewalk.
"Here's somebody who made it out ... and then he comes home and he ended up getting shot for nothing," Sanders' sister Meochia Thompson, 34, told the Chicago Tribune as her brother's crisp green uniform sat nearby.
Sanders was shot and killed Thursday while walking home with his 32-year-old cousin. Harvey police apprehended one suspect in his 20's over the weekend, and they continue to search for a second suspect, a city spokeswoman said Sunday.
Sanders and his cousin were walking near 154th Street and Center Avenue after getting French fries from a nearby business when the came upon a man fighting with someone, Sanders’ sister Shantelle Coleman told the Tribune.
Shots rang out as they crossed the street to avoid the dispute, but Sanders was shot in the back, a bullet piercing his heart. He was pronounced dead at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office.
Sander’s parents were in Mississippi visiting friends at the time he was killed. His mother later spoke with the Sun-Times, saying she never wanted him to join the Army because she was afraid for his safety. But Thursday, he "was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."
The memories of Sanders as a funny kid are now painful for family members to talk about. They recall his constant smile, his laugh and how he always ended every conversation with “I love you.” As a 6-year-old, he shaved his eyebrows because he desperately wanted something to shave and his eyebrows were the only hair on this face.
"Simeon looked like Frankenstein and I couldn't figure out why. Me and my mom started cracking up when we realized he had shaved off his eyebrows," Thompson told CBS 2.
Sanders was the youngest of eight children and had followed his sister into the army while studying engineering at Tennessee State University, the Chicagoist reports.
He graduated from Thornton Township High School and joined the military in January to help pay for college. He was on a one-month leave from the army and was headed to Ft. Bragg in North Carolina for a few weeks.
Sanders had hoped to learn how to jump out of planes there and eventually serve in Korea, Coleman said.
"He was just a light – a light that shined," Coleman told CBS 2.
Posted Tuesday, Jul 14, 2009 - 1:11 AM CST
