CHICAGO – Cornelius German told his mother he was afraid to wait for her at the bus stop because of all the shootings here lately, so he asked her to meet him at a friend’s.
Timika Rutledge said she and the boy’s father pulled up to a home and waited Monday night, even blowing the horn for him to come out. Then they saw police arrive.
“I saw an officer and I stopped him and asked, ‘Officer, what’s going on?’ ”
“A kid got shot in the back,” he told Rutledge.
“I went back there and saw my son’s jacket and his gym shoes. I just bought those shoes. I saw him laying in the grass in the backyard. … I knew it was him in the dark.
“I stayed there until they took him to the morgue,” Rutledge said. “They covered him in a burgundy blanket.”
Relatives said Cornelius, nicknamed Cornbread, was hanging out with friends in the backyard of a home in the 5000 block of South Evans Avenue when a dice game broke up around 9:30 p.m. Gunfire erupted and Cornelius was hit in the back.
The shooting occurred a little more than four blocks from President Barack Obama’s Kenwood home. Police had no description of the shooter and reported no arrests this morning.
Rutledge said Cornelius had originally planned to meet her at a Walgreens drug store at 51st Street and Cottage Grove Avenue.
“We rolled through the Walgreens and he wasn’t there,” Rutledge said. “I guess it was a mother’s instinct and I called him back and asked, ‘Where are you at?’ ”
Cornelius said he decided to wait at a friend’s instead. “I didn’t stand at the bus stop because they would be shooting,” Rutledge said her son told her, explaining that gangs in the area have been fighting over turf in the Bronzeville neighborhood…
Read more: Chicago Tribune
