Chicago police Superintendent Garry McCarthy told reporters Sunday that a 7-year-old boy fatally shot on the West Side during the July Fourth holiday was “the unintended victim of a bullet meant for his father.”
Antonio Brown, who police say is a ranking member of the Four Corner Hustlers street gang, has been arrested 45 times on charges ranging from gun possession to burglary, and is not cooperating with detectives in their investigation into the slaying of his son, Amari Brown, police said.
McCarthy said that the elder Brown’s last arrest was in April for gun possession after leading police on a vehicle pursuit. Brown was later released on bail in that case, Cook County court records show.
“If Mr. Brown is in custody, his son is alive,” McCarthy, flanked by several police officials and other officers, told a room full of reporters at the Harrison District police station on the West Side on Sunday afternoon. “That’s not the case. Quite frankly, he shouldn’t have been on the street.”
McCarthy offered no evidence that would prove Antonio Brown had been the intended target in the shooting that killed Amari.
Amari Brown was among nine people fatally shot throughout the city since Thursday afternoon. Forty-six others were wounded by gunfire.
Most of the shootings over the holiday weekend happened from 9:20 p.m. Saturday until 4:45 a.m. Sunday, when 30 people were shot across Chicago. Three of those victims died, including 7-year-old Amari.
McCarthy expressed anger and frustration at the boy’s death and the sudden uptick in gunplay overnight, a burst of violence that persisted despite the department this weekend extending the shifts of thousands of officers from 8½ hours to 12 hours.
McCarthy said that the outbreak in violence shows that the number of officers working the streets isn’t as critical in preventing shootings as having effective gun laws that put gun offenders behind bars for a long time. McCarthy has long contended that Illinois’ sentencing laws for gun crimes are too lenient.
“If you think that putting more cops on the street would make a difference, then take a look at the fact that we put a third more manpower on the street for this weekend,” McCarthy said. “What’s the result? We’re getting more guns. Well, that’s great. It’s not stopping the violence.
“And it’s not going to stop the violence until criminals are held accountable and something is done to stem the flow of these guns into our city.”
In discussing the death of 7-year-old Amari, McCarthy called the boy “the unintended victim of a bullet that was meant for his father” who has had “numerous and frequent encounters with the police.”
McCarthy also held up a bundle of paper to show reporters as he spoke at a podium. He said it was Antonio Brown’s arrest history.
“Quite frankly, I’ve never seen anything like this,” McCarthy said. “I don’t know how many pages it is. It’s probably about 22 pages long.“
