WBEZ | chicago gun violence

Report links Chicagoans' distance from trauma centers to higher mortality rates

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 16:31:00 -0500

Chicago-area gunshot victims who are shot more than five miles from a trauma center have a higher mortality rate, according to a new public health study released on Thursday.

Dr. Marie Crandall, a professor in surgery/trauma care at Northwestern University, analyzed 11,744 gunshot patients from 1999-2009. The data found 4,782 people were shot more than five miles from a trauma center. Those patients were disproportionately black and less likely to be insured.

“We have demonstrated that incident proximity to a trauma center has a positive effect on survival outcomes for gunshot wound victims,” says Crandall’s report, which the American Journal of Public Health published. Trauma centers take care of more severe injuries such as stabbings, car crashes and gunshot wounds (GSW). The Chicago area has seven Level 1 adult trauma centers.

Among the study’s findings: The crude mortality rate for blacks shot within five miles is 6.42 percent; whereas outside of five miles, it is 8.73 percent. This would translate into 6.3 excess deaths per year. Crude mortality is not adjusted for variables such as severity of injury. Crandall said previous research had shown difference in transport times but didn’t really affect survival. This new research drills down to Chicago and focuses solely on gunshot wounds.

“Our study is different. The heterogeneity of trauma patients are such that if you’re not specific about your research question, you might find different results,” Crandall said. “The vast majority of penetrating trauma in the city of Chicago is gunshot wounds and very relevant to our current crises, we decided to limit the data set and analysis to that population.”

According to the study, “We have identified the southeast side of the city as a relative trauma desert in Chicago’s regional trauma system that is associated with increased GSW mortality. We hope that the data presented will inform discussions aimed at optimizing regional trauma care in Chicago and will also aid in planning regional trauma systems in other urban settings.”

In 2011, a WBEZ analysis suggested that when it came to ambulance run times from the scene to trauma centers, there were disparities. Put simply, patients living on the Southeast Side face longer ambulance run times than other residents in the city. Specifically, they have to travel an average of 50 percent longer to get from the scene of an emergency to a trauma center. More than half of the trauma-related ambulance runs that originate in that part of town exceed 20 minutes, which is considered a professional standard within the city. Those neighborhoods include Hyde Park, Woodlawn, Pullman, South Shore and the Southeast Side.

Trauma center access has long been a contentious issue for some activists. And there have been questions about whether an additional trauma center would save lives on the South Side.

In 2010, a stray bullet killed youth activist Damian Turner. He was shot on the South Side, near the University of Chicago hospital. But he was transported approximately eight miles downtown to an adult trauma center at Northwestern University. Ninety minutes later he died.

A group called Fearless Leading by the Youth believes if the university had its own trauma center, Turner would have gotten treatment sooner and lived. For years, members have protested the University of Chicago, which had a trauma center for adults from 1986-1988. It closed after hemorrhaging $2 million a year, though they still serve children. At the time doctors said a majority of patients had no health insurance. Recently the issue flared up again when the University of Chicago opened a new $700 million facility with no additional trauma care.

Victoria Crider, a member of FLY, says the new study will help activists’ cause.

“We plan on using this data to show that this is exactly what it says: a relationship between whether or not you live or die and the time it takes you to get to the nearest trauma center,” Crider said.

The study acknowledges the costliness of trauma centers. Crandall writes that trauma centers could be rebalanced on the basis of volume and proximity as opposed to capacity. In addition, she writes that existing local hospitals could take in trauma patients in a possible Level 2 capacity.

Natalie Moore is WBEZ's South Side Bureau reporter. Follow her @natalieymoore.

A Lesson from LaWanda

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 06:29:00 -0500

Yesterday, during the “Afternoon Shift” interview Rick Kogan and I did with LaWanda Thompson-Sterling, I heard myself admitting that the ordeal of her son’s murder – a story I followed on and off my WBEZ blog for two and half years – had sometimes been too much and that, because I could, because I’d had the privilege, I’d backed away and taken some distance at times.

Jeremiah Sterling was murdered July 15, 2010, his killer arrested almost immediately. For LaWanda, the murder didn’t just occur on that sunny day, but was kept alive with every new twist and turn of the case, with every new rumor that hit her doorstep, with every interview we did, with every visit from her son’s friends.

I remember being at her house and sensing that her welcome to his friends – young folks hurting from the loss, lonely for their own reasons, disoriented by events – seemed both a balm and a curse. Jeremiah’s friends kept his memory fresh, but that also meant the murder – a savage assassination – stayed near, a malignant ghost hovering.

A year after the murder, LaWanda and I were still in touch but our communications were more perfunctory.

There was something else going on in my life, too: My partner was pregnant. We were consumed with preparation, with joy, with the anticipation of this tidal wave of change in our lives.

And I was terrified. I was terrified, I suppose, of all the usual things that afflict parents on the verge – financial fears and fears about knowing what to do, of not being able to love right, or enough, or too much; of screwing him up.

When our son was born, I was enraptured. But his beauty, instead of allaying my fears, only made them worse. I worried, a lot, about the basic protection I could offer my son, and that I would never be strong enough, quick enough, limber enough, to keep him from harm.

And what about when he wasn’t with me? When he was old enough to be on his own, as good as bare-chested out in the world, as carefree and cocky as … Jeremiah Sterling?

What would I do if I lost my son? The thought – the literal thought, the very idea – is unimaginable.

And then I’d look at my Facebook messages and see LaWanda bravely commemorating this or that event in Jeremiah’s life, and my face would just burn from shame.

Because, really, how absurd. How very absurd – with my son on my lap -- to even think the realm of her wound could be accessed in any way outside of the experience itself.

The thing is, LaWanda both scares and awes me. She conjures a strength and a light that are alien to me, that I fear I could dig for in my own reserves and never find – a strength and light forged from a pain that would surely fell me.

She has a lesson to teach us, I know she does, but I don’t really want to think about the need to learn it. Because to think about it, I think, is to contemplate the very worst thing.

And nobody – absolutely no one – wants to think about that.

The Jeremiah Sterling Story: Epilogue

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 00:43:00 -0500

Last Friday, after the jury deliberating the fate of her son’s killer came back in less than an hour with guilty verdicts for first-degree murder and a slew of other charges, LaWanda Thompson-Sterling said she and her daughter drove home in silence and just sat in the car for what seemed like forever.

"All I could think about was, now what?” she said. “Now what do you do?”

A few days after the trial, having a sandwich on 47th Street with a friend, Thompson-Sterling still looked tired.

“It’s just that nothing is different,” she said. “Except I don’t have the burden of going to 26th and California to the trial. I prepared myself for a not guilty verdict. I was very nervous when the jury came back and I said, ‘Lord, help me to deal with it if it’s not guilty’.”

But even though she’d been longing to hear the guilty verdict, the words seemed to go right through her. She slept away a good portion of Saturday, and again on Sunday.

"I’ve been reliving the tragedy,” she said. “In different ways. I looked up 40 caliber bullets on in the Internet, trying to figure how big they are, how they might have felt going into Jeremiah’s body.”

It took about two and a half years for Jeremiah Sterling’s killer to come to trial. The accused, Romairal Allen, had shuffled in and out of court more than a dozen times for preliminary hearings and the trial itself, his head tilting up, looking out at the courtroom to the circle of women who accompanied his mother to every appearance.

“[His] mother just looked lost,” Thompson-Sterling said. “And Friday night, I began to think about Romairal in that cell, because now he’s going to go to the big man’s prison. And how do you deal with that – with no hope of a future? Even if you’re redeemed in prison, you’re still in prison.”

One day during the week-long trial, Thompson-Sterling found herself even closer to Allen and his family. She’d just gone through security and she turned to get her purse. Allen’s godmother, who was going through security just then as well, reached over and hugged Thompson-Sterling.

“Every time I see you, I try to smile to show you we don’t have anything against you,” the woman whispered. “We wanted to say something to you but we just didn’t know what to say.”

Thompson-Sterling hugged her back. “I’m not angry at you,” she told her. “I don’t blame you for what Romairal did. We’re two hurting, broken families. The difference is you get to see your young man through glass or bars and I have to go to the cemetery to see mine.”

For now, she’s preparing to start a new job and will continue working with Purpose Over Pain, a support group for families affected by violence.

"It’s never over,” Thompson-Sterling said. “It’s different but it never goes away. I try my hardest not to be angry. But I can’t be angry because then Romairal took my life too.”

Earlier stories in this series:

Witness: A Killing in West Pullman

The Jeremiah Sterling Story: Part 1

The Jeremiah Sterling Story: Part 2 -- 'He's been fightin' since he got here'

The Jeremiah Sterling Story: Part 3

The Jeremiah Sterling Story: Part 4

The Jeremiah Sterling Story: Part 5

The Jeremiah Sterling Story: Part 6 -- Birthday

Northwest Indiana county rejects tightening gun show rules

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 12:00:00 -0600

CROWN POINT, Ind. — Commissioners in a northwest Indiana county that abuts Illinois have rejected tightening up regulations for gun shows at the county's fairgrounds.

Law enforcement officials from the two states say Lake County's shows are a potential source of weapons flowing into Chicago.

But Commissioner Mike Repay said Wednesday the county is following the law and anyone upset with that should work to get the laws changed.

The Times of Munster reports Sheriff John Buncich told the county commissioners Wednesday there's a need for tighter gun show vendor controls.

Buncich said after a guns summit last week in Gary attended by about 80 representatives from a dozen local, state and federal agencies in the two states that authorities will more closely review the sponsors of guns shows.

President Obama to speak at Chicago high school

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 16:23:00 -0600

President Barack Obama's post-State of the Union speech in Chicago will be at a high school on the city's South Side.

The White House says Obama will speak Friday afternoon at Hyde Park Academy. The visit comes days after first lady Michelle Obama sat next to the parents of Hadiya Pendleton during the president's State of the Union address on Tuesday.

The 15-year-old girl was shot and killed about a mile from Obama's Chicago home. The majorette was killed just days after she performed at events for Obama's inauguration in Washington last month.

The president is expected to address gun violence and other issues.

Michelle Obama attended Hadiya's funeral in Chicago last weekend. Police say the girl was an innocent victim in a gang-related shooting.

Chicago City Council approves gun ordinance

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 15:58:00 -0600

Chicago's City Council is increasing jail time for anyone who fails to report guns that have been lost, stolen or sold.

Wednesday's vote on an ordinance proposed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel is part of an effort by city and county officials to crack down on so-called straw purchasers. Those are people who legally buy weapons and then provide them to convicted felons and others who are barred from owning firearms.

Earlier this month, the Cook County Board of Commissioners approved an ordinance that imposes fines of as much as $2,000 on suburban residents who don't report when their guns are lost, stolen or transferred to someone else.

Wednesday's ordinance by the City Council doubles the maximum sentence for failing to make such a report from three months to six months

Gun victims, academics join Senate firearms clash

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 09:26:00 -0600

WASHINGTON — The toll of gun violence and the widespread disgust it has generated makes it time for new federal gun curbs that balance public safety with gun rights, Democrats said Tuesday at the Senate's latest hearing on restricting firearms.

Republicans said today's unenforced gun laws give criminals no reason to fear ignoring those laws. And they warned that the Constitution's right to bear arms must be protected, even after unspeakable events like the December slaughter of 20 first-graders in Connecticut.

Each side trotted out their own legal experts, statistics and even relatives of people slain by gun-wielding assailants. In the end there was little partisan agreement, though Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said cooperation was possible on stopping straw purchases, in which someone legally buys a gun for a criminal or a person barred from owning one.

As always with guns, emotion and the issue's personal impact colored the day's session.

The crowded hearing room was filled with people from gun control groups and according to Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., included relatives of some killed in the Newtown, Conn., elementary school shootings. Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., chairman of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee holding the hearing, asked friends and families of gun victims to stand, and dozens rose.

"We know that we have to act," Durbin said.

At another point, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., began his questioning of the panel's first witness, Timothy J. Heaphy, the U.S. attorney for the western district of Virginia and an appointee of President Barack Obama, with one question: "Do you own a gun?"

"No," responded Heaphy, who said, "I do not feel comfortable having a gun in our home" because he has children.

One witness, Suzanna Gratia Hupp, told the senators of being in a cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, in 1991 when a gunman smashed his truck through the front window and fatally shot 23 people, including her parents. Hupp says she left her gun in her car because Texas law barred her from bringing it into the restaurant.

"I don't view myself as a victim of gun violence," said Hupp, now a Texas state official and gun rights advocate. "I view myself as a victim of a maniac who happened to use a gun as a tool. And I view myself as the victim of the legislators we had at the time who left me defenseless."

Taking the opposing view was Sandra J. Wortham, whose brother, Chicago police officer Thomas E. Wortham IV, was fatally shot outside their parents' home by robbers in 2010, though he and his father, a retired police sergeant, fired back.

"The fact that they were armed that night didn't prevent Thomas' murder," said Wortham, now a Chicago police official.

The hearing came just hours before Obama was to deliver his annual State of the Union address, in which he was expected to repeat his call for gun curbs.

Obama has proposed banning assault weapons and ammunition magazines that can carry more than 10 rounds, and wants background checks for all firearms purchases. Currently, the checks are required only for sales by federally licensed gun dealers, omitting the many transactions at gun shows and between individuals.

Democrats have been more receptive to Obama's proposals than Republicans, most of whom — along with the National Rifle Association — have opposed them. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., hopes to write legislation in the next few weeks that is expected to include expanded background checks and a gun-trafficking prohibition, but not bans on assault weapons or high capacity magazines, which have gotten less support.

Cruz, top Republican on the panel, expressed sympathy for gun victims but said constitutional rights must be protected "not just when they're popular, but especially when passions are seeking to restrict and limit those rights."

In the battle of statistics, Cruz said that of the six cities with the nation's highest murder rates, five — Detroit, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and Chicago — have tough anti-gun laws. Only Memphis, Tenn., has less vigorous firearms controls, he said.

Responding to Cruz, Heaphy, the U.S. attorney, said there are too many factors that influence crime to conclude that strict gun measures don't work.

Graham said that of 80,000 federal background checks for gun purchases turned down annually by the FBI, barely any result in prosecutions. He said the odds of being prosecuted for lying on a background check are "probably a whole lot less than being struck by lightning or hit by a meteor."

Democrats cited the 11,000 Americans killed annually by gunfire.

Daniel W. Webster, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, which favors tighter gun control laws, said that 2004 data showed that nearly 8 in 10 prisoners who committed gun-related crimes got firearms from unlicensed private sellers, whose transactions do not require background checks. That, he said, underscored the need to expand those checks to all sales.

Laurence H. Tribe, a liberal Harvard Law School professor, said that 2008 and 2010 Supreme Court rulings made it clear that sweeping proposals to flatly take guns away from citizens "have been decisively taken off the table." Banning assault weapons and other especially lethal firearms would not violate the Second Amendment's right to bear arms, he said.

But conservative attorney Charles J. Cooper, who has long defended gun rights and represented the NRA, said the court's rulings ensure that bearing arms "is not to be treated as a second-class right, or singled out for special or unfavorable treatment."

Obama to stress jobs, Afghan war troop withdrawal in State of the Union

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 09:20:00 -0600

WASHINGTON — Still hampered by the vulnerable economy, President Barack Obama is using his State of the Union address to appeal for new spending to create jobs while also pledging to cut the federal deficit, in part by raising taxes — issues Republicans are likely to oppose.

Speaking before a divided Congress Tuesday night, Obama also will announce a major reduction in U.S. military forces in Afghanistan, withdrawing 34,000 troops within a year, half the total deployed there. And he'll sharply rebuke North Korea for defying the international community and launching a nuclear test hours before Obama's remarks.

But it's the economy at center stage, as it has been each time Obama has stood before lawmakers and a national TV audience for the annual address. Despite marked improvements since he took office four years ago, the unemployment rate is still hovering around 8 percent and consumer confidence has slipped.

White House officials said Obama would offer the public an outline for job creation, though much of his blueprint will include elements Americans have heard before, including spending more money to boost manufacturing and improve infrastructure. Getting that new spending through Congress appears unlikely, given that it would require support from Republicans who blocked similar measures during Obama's first term.

The president is expected to be uncompromising in his calls for lawmakers to offset across-the-board spending cuts that are scheduled to begin March 1 with a mix of tax increases and targeted budget cuts.

The president hasn't detailed where he wants lawmakers to take action, though he and his aides often mention as examples of unnecessary tax breaks a benefit for owners of private jets and tax subsidies for oil and gas companies. Such measures are modest, however. Ending the corporate plane and oil and gas breaks would generate about $43 billion in revenue over 10 years.

That appeal for new revenue is getting stiff-armed by Republicans, who reluctantly agreed at the start of the year to increase tax rates on the wealthiest Americans in exchange for extending Bush-era tax rates for the rest of taxpayers.

"He's gotten all the revenue he's going to get," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said. "Been there, done that."

Still, buoyed by re-election, the president and his top aides are confident that Americans back their vision for the economy. Immediately following his speech, Obama will hold a conference call with supporters to urge them to pressure lawmakers to back his agenda. He'll also seek to rally public support with trips this week to North Carolina, Georgia and Illinois.

Also Tuesday night:

— The president will press Congress to overhaul immigration laws and tackle climate change.

— His wish-list will include expanding early childhood education and making it easier for voters to cast ballots in elections.

— Obama is expected to make an impassioned plea for stricter gun laws, including universal background checks and a ban on assault weapons.

First lady Michelle Obama will sit with the parents of a Chicago teenager shot and killed just days after she performed at the president's inauguration. Twenty-two House members have invited people affected by gun violence, according to Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., who helped with the effort. And Republican Rep. Steve Stockman of Texas says he's invited rocker Ted Nugent, a long-time gun control opponent who last year said he would end up "dead or in jail" if Obama won re-election.

Though Obama is devoting less time to foreign policy this year, his announcement on the drawdown of U.S. forces in Afghanistan is highly anticipated and puts the nation on pace to formally finish the protracted war by the end of 2014.

On North Korea, the White House said Obama would make the case that the impoverished nation's nuclear program has only further isolated it from the international community. North Korea said Tuesday that it successfully detonated a nuclear device in defiance of U.N. warnings.

Emanuel: Bring on longer state sentences for illegal gun carry

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 15:32:00 -0600

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is pushing for a new Illinois state law that would require longer sentences for people caught carrying guns illegally. The proposal would increase the mandatory minimum sentence from one to three years for people caught with loaded guns and without a license.

The minimum for felons carrying guns would go from two to three years with subsequent offenses carrying a minimum of five years. The law would also require those convicted of certain gun crimes to serve 85 percent of their time instead of just the 50 percent that is common now.

Emanuel says harsher sentences are just one part of a larger strategy to bring down gun violence.

“Whether it’s gun enforcement, whether it’s after-school programs, summer jobs, early childhood education, stronger, more effective policing, tougher laws, criminal background checks, we are going to play every key on this keyboard,” Emanuel said.

Emanuel announced the legislative effort along with his Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy.

McCarthy pointed at large posterboards at the side of the room showing people who had been convicted of gun crimes, received light sentences and then were murdered shortly after they were released.

“One (murder) committed in the seventh district was (of a man) convicted in 2012 for straw purchasing, from yes, a gunshop in the county of Cook. If that individual was serving his time he would not have been murdered last Friday morning,” McCarthy said.

McCarthy also had a posterboard showing three men who were recently convicted of gun crimes but were back out on the streets after serving short sentences. Those men were later charged with murder. McCarthy says they wouldn’t have had the chance to commit murder if they’d had longer sentences for their earlier gun crimes.

Hadiya Pendleton's parents to sit with first lady at State of the Union

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 13:01:00 -0600

Updated: 1 p.m.

A White House official says the parents of a Chicago teenager slain just days after performing during President Barack Obama's inauguration will attend his State of the Union speech.

Hadiya Pendleton, 15, was shot to death Jan. 29 in a park close to the Obama's Chicago home. Police say a gunman hopped a fence and opened fire on a group of young people. She was a majorette with the King College Prep band. Police have said Pendleton was an innocent victim in a gang-related shooting. Her death was among dozens of homicides in Chicago last month, though her background and ties to Obama thrust her death into the national headlines.

First lady Michelle Obama attended Hadiya's funeral in Chicago on Saturday. Her parents, Cleopatra and Nathaniel Pendleton, will sit with the first lady during Tuesday's speech, which is expected to mention gun violence.

A judge has ordered two gang members charged with Pendleton's murder be held without bail.

Cook County Judge Israel Desierto on Tuesday ordered 18-year-old Michael Ward and 20-year-old Kenneth Williams held.

Ward and Williams were charged Monday with first-degree murder, two counts of attempted murder and aggravated battery with a firearm, Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said Monday night. Both were taken into custody late Saturday while on their way to a strip club — and just hours after first lady Michelle Obama and other dignitaries attended Pendleton's funeral.

Police say the shooters mistook Pendleton and her friends for members of a rival gang and attacked the group in retaliation for a shooting that injured one of them over the summer.

"Ward confessed and indicated Hadiya was not the intended target. They got it all wrong," McCarthy said.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel says he's talked to the Pendleton's Monday about the two young men who were taken into custody over the weekend.

At a news conference, Emanuel said the call was one of several he's made to relatives of Pendleton, adding that most of the other calls were made simply to comfort them.

Meanwhile, Emanuel, Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez and McCarthy said they'll push for state legislation that increases the minimum sentences for those who violate the state's gun laws.