Chicago police are investigating "a lot of leads" and getting "a ton of tips" from the community in the investigation into the shooting death of 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton, Supt. Garry McCarthy said during an appearance on NBC 5 Friday morning.
"Fortunately, the community is stepping up and giving us everything that they've got, from rumors to whatever they know," McCarthy said. "Something's gonna pan out."
Hadiya Pendleton, 15, was shot and killed Tuesday afternoon in a park near 44th and Oakenwald. Her death has focused attention once again on Chicago's violence, in part, because she is described as an upstanding student who had just performed in a marching band at President Obama's inauguration festivities one week earlier.
The reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Pendleton's killer stood at $24,000 Friday.
When asked about the ongoing violence in the city, McCarthy said this isn't a new problem in Chicago.
"There's so many different factors that unfortunately go into violence in the city . . . It's about poverty, it's about education, it's about the break-up of the family unit, it's about guns, right and it's about policing all at the same time," he said. "This city and this problem didn't start yesterday, it didn't start last week. The fact is we've got to move this forward as a community."
