The One Homicide Story Everyone Needs To Read

By Chuck Sudo in News on Jul 2, 2014 4:30PM

Chicago Police may be proud with the lower homicide numbers for the first half of 2014 but the fact remains shootings, shooting victims, murders and other major crimes are still high in the city and we should not rest until a “zero tolerance” policy replaces “no snitching.” The South and West sides remain war zones far removed from the rest of the city and we still complain about the homicides happening in Chicago while simultaneously being numb to it.

So we ask you to head over to the Sun-Times “Homicide Watch” blog, where photojournalist Vincent D. Johnson recounts the murder of 17-year-old Michael Patton Monday night. Johnson was checking his basement for flooding when he heard three loud cracks that could not be mistaken for gunshots. He and his wife ran outside in the rain where they found Patton lying in the flooded street, clinging to life, a gun nearby.

I leaned over the wounded teen and checked his left wrist for a pulse but felt nothing. Then I pressed my fingers against his neck, but before I could find a pulse, his entire body twitched and gasped for air.

I now knew he was still alive, but I didn’t know what to do to help.

Johnson and his wife worked to stop the bleeding from the wound in Patton’s chest, which Johnson described as “just white tissue that made the wound look like a belly button.” It was only after police arrived and set up a crime scene that Johnson decided to grab his camera and document the event.

When I first walked out the door, a part of me thought about going back inside and getting my camera. But I remembered what a great teacher once told me, “You’re a human first and a photojournalist second.”