Logan Square Shooter is "Not a Punk"
By Laura Oppenheimer in News on Jun 29, 2007 2:05PM
If the kid living with you joins a gang, gets a gun, and shoots a thirteen year old girl, you might look to yourself and try to determine what went wrong. You might. Or, you might take that anger and frustration and send it right back to Mayor Daley for calling suspect Tony Serrano a "nineteen year old punk."
Serrano is accused of firing the shots that killed Schanna Gayden on the orders of gang leader Mwenda Murithi. Both are reputed members of the Imperial Gangsters street gang. According to Susanna Rosa, who provided a home for Serrano for the past month, Serrano became a "victim of the streets" after he moved to Logan Square last fall.
"Richard Daley wants us to look under our kids' bed," said Rosa, 38. "Well, he needs to come live here and see what is going on. . . . This is a rough neighborhood. Some of these kids don't listen. . . . These kids need jobs." So what, then we don't blame him for his actions and instead blame the mean streets of Logan Square? We should feel sorry for him that it was difficult to get a job? Except, what about all the teenagers that don't join gangs, or don't kill kids in playgrounds? The entire back and forth between Daley and Rosa just seems pitiful and insensitive.
In other shooting-related news, Murithi, the gang-leader who ordered the shooting (they were trying to hit members of a rival gang who were taunting them from across the street), is living in the US on an expired student visa. According to Assistant State's Atty. Maria McCarthy, the Kenyan native attended the University of Wisconsin at Platteville for three years; since then, he has lived here illegally. Murithi's attorney said he has also worked at Home Depot. And we suppose, made himself an integral part of the Imperial Gangsters, and been arrested 28 times in the past four years. No doubt this will add fuel to the fire for the anti-immigration set.
Visitation for Schanna will be held from 9 to 11 a.m. Saturday in Armitage Baptist Church, 2451 N. Kedzie Blvd. The funeral, also in the church, will be held from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Gayden's mother, Rita Sallie, invited any Chicagoan touched by Gayden's death to attend. "Everybody, everybody who wants to pay their respects to my baby can come," she said.