A Chicago public school teacher was fatally shot at her second job at a real estate office in what police say was an exchange of gunfire between two groups of alleged gang members.
Betty Howard taught at Gwendolyn Brooks College Prep, and after work with special needs students she spent time at a realty company in Chatham, a middle-class neighborhood on Chicago's South Side. Family members say she was in the office when she was shot Thursday.
Police said the gunfire appeared to stem from a gang conflict. Family members said a bullet came through a wall and struck her in the head.
Howard, 58, would travel to homes to teach disabled students, doing whatever it took to help some of the city's most challenged youth, Brooks Principal D'Andre Weaver said.
Students on Friday wrote "thank you" letters to Howard. Students from her home room released green and pink balloons, the colors of Alpha Kappa Alpha, the teacher's sorority.
Sophomore Isaac Simmons said he didn't know Howard, but his friends who were in her class could feel the concern she had for them.
"I know a couple of kids that actually went to her for help, and it seemed like she was always trying to help out and do the best for kids," he told WMAQ-TV. "It's so much violence, you really don't know what to do. I mean, I've just got to hope and pray that something like that doesn't happen to me."
Community activist Andrew Holmes says some members of the community are offering a $2,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Howard's killer.
"I'm talking directly to the people they were shooting at," Holmes said. "You know who was shooting at you. Whether you were shot today, you know who was shooting at you. What you need to do is pick up that phone (and call police)."
Chicago's battle with violent crime has been closely watched. In 2012, the city led the U.S. in homicides with more than 500. It ended 2013 with 415 homicides — the lowest total in nearly half a century but still far more than any other U.S city, including much larger Los Angeles and New York
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Victim from shooting that killed teacher: 'You're hitting innocent people'
Brittany Willams went through several emotional stages after getting grazed by a stray bullet Thursday night down the street from her Chatham neighborhood apartment.
"Shocked. Worried. Grateful. Thankful. Blessed," she recalled this afternoon about the graze wound to her left hand during an interview at her job at McCormick Place. "...I've never been in action like this. And for a person whose never been through this, it was a shock. I didn't know that I was really hit until somebody started coming around me like, 'You're bleeding.'"She was one of three people shot Thursday evening in the 700 block of East 79th Street, a shooting that left 58-year-old Betty Howard dead, and a coworker injured from an errant bullet that penetrated the wall of a realty business.
With her left hand bandaged up, Williams told the Tribune that she had just finished running errands when she decided to take her 1-year-old Shih Tzu, Lauren, for a walk. While she walked north on Evans Avenue, Williams crouched down to tend to her pet.
"My dog, she loves grass. So I noticed that she had some by her mouth," Williams recounted. "So I bent down to touch her face. That's when I heard the first gunshots."
Williams immediately dropped to the ground, clutching Lauren with her right arm.
"That's when I felt the bullet shave my (left) hand," Williams recalled. "And when it did that, a couple more shots went off, and that's when I heard...tires screeching to ride off.
"And that's when I hurried up and grabbed my baby and ran," she said.
Williams felt pain in her left hand, but because of the adrenaline rush, she initially thought she only scratched herself.
Moments later, Williams collapsed in front of Kale Realty, where Howard and a coworker were shot. That's when passersby crowded around her and noticed she was shot.
"I'm like, 'I'm OK.' And then I look at my hand and my hand is just swelled up big," Williams recalled.
As for her dog Lauren, she made it out unharmed, but wouldn't leave Williams's side.
"She knew something was wrong with me," Williams said of her dog. "She just stayed under me until my (girlfriend) came outside."
The paramedics bandaged up her wound, but didn't clean it, she recalled. Williams then removed the bandage temporarily to apply peroxide and Neosporin to her wound. Today, a co-worker wrapped a fresh bandage around the wound.
Williams said she's lived down the block at 79th and Cottage Grove Avenue for three years -- a bustling area with numerous storefronts. Historically, the area has been plagued by gang violence. But residents and business owners have acknowledged that the area improved greatly last year after the Chicago Police Department added rookies to work foot patrols and veteran cops to work overtime shifts seven days a week.
But the violent crime has still been a nuisance to Williams, who plans on moving out of her apartment with her girlfriend and the dog. She's heard gunshots on multiple occasions from her apartment.
She was even about to leave work early this afternoon to talk to her realtor about where to move next. It's one thing to hear gunshots every now and then, but to become a shooting victim in the neighborhood was the final straw, she said.Every time there's gunfire, she worries about who the next victim is going to be.
"Honestly, I just want everybody to just stop shooting," she said. "...You're hitting innocent people that don't have nothing to do with what y'all got going on."
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