Frustrated mothers and community leaders looking for answers and arrests met at a West Side church Tuesday to discuss why they believe police are not investigating the murders of their loved ones.
Marvin Hunter is the pastor of Grace Memorial Church located on the 1400 block of South Kenneth Avenue in the city's Lawndale neighborhood. He's also Laquan McDonald's great uncle. Hunter claims that, since the death of his nephew, police changed how they handle unsolved crimes in certain communities.
“The police don't feel like these murders are important,” he says. “They don’t call the families or update the families.”
Fontaine Sanders, 19, was gunned down in while playing basketball. His mother says she just wants to know that police are still working to solve his murder.
“These guys was able to come in my community and shoot my baby in the head in broad daylight,” said his mother, Corniki Bornbs. “And no cops seen it and ain’t no cops doing nothing about it.”
“I just want help,” she added. “They haven’t reassured me that they want to help stop this, because ain’t nothing happening.”
She also said she doesn’t see police on the beat in her neighborhood.
Local
Cornelius Hunter was killed two years ago. His mother says she has never met with police.
I don't understand why [no one has] come to [speak] with me,” Marketa Hunter Wilson said, adding she hasn’t seen so much as a card or received a phone call from police or detectives.
“The police don’t feel that these murders are important,” Rev. Marvin Hunter says. “They don’t call the families, they don’t update the families, sometimes years go by before they hear anything.”
"CPD continues to work to solve more cases by rebuilding community trust and by promoting over 130 new detectives this year, with plans to add additional detectives over the next two years," Chicago police spokesman Frank Giancamilli said in an emailed statement.
The Chicago Police Department said both Sanders and Hunters’ murders are still open investigations.
The Fraternal Order of Police declined to comment.
