GROUP SEEKS TO GAIN INFORMATION IN SHOOTINGS

Chicago Police Department 7th District Commander Larry Snelling, 16th Ward Alderman Stephanie Coleman, Early Walker, Sean Howard and Christopher Scott of “I’m Telling, Don’t Shoot.” The new group was created to offer high value cash rewards to expedite the arrest of those who kill innocent children, the elderly and women. Photo courtesy of Sean Howard
Chicago Police Department 7th District Commander Larry Snelling, 16th Ward Alderman Stephanie Coleman, Early Walker, Sean Howard and Christopher Scott of “I’m Telling, Don’t Shoot.” The new group was created to offer high value cash rewards to expedite the arrest of those who kill innocent children, the elderly and women. Photo courtesy of Sean Howard

Group seeks to gain information in shootings

BY TIA CAROL JONES

Elected officials, clergy, business owners and community leaders have created a group to seek information on shootings and killings due to gun violence. The group, I’m Telling, Don’t Shoot, aims to provide a cash reward as an incentive to get information that will lead to arrests.

The group recently offered a $25,000 cash reward for information that would lead to the arrest of the shooters who killed a one-year-old and injured a three-year-old earlier this month.

Stephanie Coleman, 16th Ward Alderman, said she and business owners have stepped up to bring justice to the families of the children who have been shot and to prevent further shootings of young children in Englewood.

“This trend of babies being hit, we want to prevent that narrative and we want to stop it right now,” Coleman said. “We’re coming collectively, not just CPD, security agencies, other agencies, clergy, faith-based leaders, businessmen and women, community organizations, violence prevention organizations, we’re all coming together, protecting our community.”

Early Walker, owner of W&W Towing, is one of the business owners who came up with the idea to offer a cash reward. He said the business owners were excited about participating in the group. “We have all galvanized our dollars together and we are, not just in this essence, we are going to be pledging high value reward money as it relates to the killings of our kids, elderly and our women that are innocent bystanders,” he said.

Walker said that while they have just announced the program and the rewards, information has already been left on the tip line. “That 24-hour period of when we announced the reward money, the tip hotline has been ringing like never before,” he said.

Walker said that a lot of people don’t speak up because they are afraid. And, while there have been rewards of one or two thousand dollars, the group decided to offer more money.

“We felt that if we were able to give a more impactful reward, that would possibly allow them to be able to relocate,” Walker said. “But our biggest objective is to get the killers off the street.”

Walker added it is the role of the business owners to give back to the community it serves. He said the business owners who are part of the group, are concerned about the communities in the city that are seeing violence and they wanted to get involved.

“Our goal is to offer high value reward money to hopefully expedite the turn[ing] in of the killers. We are extending the olive branch to the killer as well. If the killer decides to turn himself in, we will also use these monies to help he or she with legal fees,” he said. He called the money an “extra incentive to expedite the process,” to perhaps ease the person’s mind of being worried when they turn themselves in and what might possibly happen after that. “We are really just using all measures to get them off the street,” Walker continued.

Coleman said in addition to the reward, there is also a collective of business leaders, faith-based leaders and violence prevention groups who are working on a pilot program, focused on the Englewood community, that will be used to assist the Chicago Police Department in the prevention of gun violence.

“We’re going to assist and be the eyes and ears of our community,” to prevent another child from being shot or killed, Coleman said. “For protecting, for conflict resolution in our community, we’re stepping up as a community, to ensure this is not our narrative. We have to do this together,” she said.

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