- Nov 2, 2009
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The streets were cruelly efficient to Pierre Loury. An arrest record at age 14, shot to death by police at 16. Authorities said he ran from a car that had been pulled over because it resembled a vehicle involved in an earlier shooting. He allegedly threatened an officer with a gun and was shot in the chest.
The details of Pierre Loury's death are in dispute — the family has filed suit. The story of Pierre Loury's life is more complete, thanks to a compelling Tribune account this week by reporters Alexis Myers and Jeremy Gorner.
Loury, who grew up in drug-infested North Lawndale, was a gang member on probation for his role at age 15 in an assault and robbery on a CTA train. He skipped school, stole from his family. His mother and stepfather wanted to believe in the teen's better nature but lost their hold on him — to the streets.
"It is culture and environment," Arewa Karen Winters, Loury's great-aunt, told the Tribune. Then she cited a gang coda so chillingly obvious that Loury's mother, Tambrasha Hudson, joined in for the last four words: "You gonna ride with us or we are gonna hurt you and hurt your family."
Loury was killed April 11. A few days later, Chicago passed the 1,000 mark for shooting victims this year — a pace faster than those of the previous few years. Last weekend's casualties totaled 51 shot, eight fatally. It is a horrifying, unfathomable roll call: Nathan Hicks, 16, shot in the chest on a sidewalk in East Garfield Park. Andres Rivera, 58, felled by an apparent stray bullet to the head at his dinner table in Archer Heights …
There have been about 200 homicides this year, a pace 50 percent higher than that of 2015. To tease apart the risk factors that put Pierre Loury and many others on the thin margin between safety and violence is discouraging. His great-aunt's insight — "it is culture and environment" — speaks to social and economic currents that run deep through the history of troubled Chicago neighborhoods.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...e-loury-algorithm-edit-md-20160510-story.html
The details of Pierre Loury's death are in dispute — the family has filed suit. The story of Pierre Loury's life is more complete, thanks to a compelling Tribune account this week by reporters Alexis Myers and Jeremy Gorner.
Loury, who grew up in drug-infested North Lawndale, was a gang member on probation for his role at age 15 in an assault and robbery on a CTA train. He skipped school, stole from his family. His mother and stepfather wanted to believe in the teen's better nature but lost their hold on him — to the streets.
"It is culture and environment," Arewa Karen Winters, Loury's great-aunt, told the Tribune. Then she cited a gang coda so chillingly obvious that Loury's mother, Tambrasha Hudson, joined in for the last four words: "You gonna ride with us or we are gonna hurt you and hurt your family."
Loury was killed April 11. A few days later, Chicago passed the 1,000 mark for shooting victims this year — a pace faster than those of the previous few years. Last weekend's casualties totaled 51 shot, eight fatally. It is a horrifying, unfathomable roll call: Nathan Hicks, 16, shot in the chest on a sidewalk in East Garfield Park. Andres Rivera, 58, felled by an apparent stray bullet to the head at his dinner table in Archer Heights …
There have been about 200 homicides this year, a pace 50 percent higher than that of 2015. To tease apart the risk factors that put Pierre Loury and many others on the thin margin between safety and violence is discouraging. His great-aunt's insight — "it is culture and environment" — speaks to social and economic currents that run deep through the history of troubled Chicago neighborhoods.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...e-loury-algorithm-edit-md-20160510-story.html