Oct. 24--Two men have been charged with murder in connection with a shooting at a barbecue last month that left three people dead and two wounded, police announced Saturday.
Anthony Jackson, 20, and Lawrence Brown, 22, each have been charged with three counts of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder and aggravated battery. They were ordered held without bail in a hearing Saturday before Cook County Judge Maria Kuriakos Ciesel.
Jackson, Brown and another gunman walked out of an alley and fired at a crowd of people Sept. 29 near a playground in the 400 block of West 42nd Street, according to prosecutors.
Ayanna Northern, 22, Antian Hardmon, 25, and Tyrone Spikes, 29, were fatally shot. A 36-year-old man was shot in the leg and a 24-year old woman who was holding her daughter was shot in the knee, prosecutors said Saturday.
The five victims were among a group of family and friends who had gathered for a barbecue to remember a loved one killed in a car crash 12 years ago.
The group stayed out past midnight next to a playground in Fuller Park, raising toasts and releasing balloons into the air. Finally, the music stopped and people were starting to head home when two gunmen opened fire from an alley, according to police.
Witnesses said they heard three shots, then at least a dozen more a moment later from the northern edge of the playground on West Root Street. People screamed and scattered.
Northern, was shot in the chest and fell near a playground swing, where she died. She had been coming to the aid of a relative when she was shot, according to her younger sister, Zenobia Northern, 20.
Zenobia Northern said her sister was the mother of a 4-year-old girl.
The barbecue was in honor of the Northerns' cousin, Robert Scott, whose 30th birthday would have been the day after the barbecue.
Just after midnight on Sept. 29, Brown drove a red van with three gunmen to an alley near the barbecue on 42nd, prosecutors said
Brown drove the van and three men got out, then began shooting on the crowd, prosecutors said.
Surveillance footage shows the van in the alley with the brake lights on during the shooting, prosecutors said.
Surveillance footage from an hour before the shooting shows Brown and three other men enter the minivan at a gas station. Jackson was also recorded pumping gas into the minivan, prosecutors said, and Brown was shown in the video as the van's driver.
At some point after the shooting, Jackson admitted his involvement in the shooting to a witness, prosecutors said. One of the men also spoke of burning the van, which was later discovered burned, prosecutors said.
Brown's attorney argued that the evidence isn't overwhelming, as "there are a lot of red minivans in this country," but Judge Kuriakos-Ciesel ordered them held without bond.
Brown and Jackson are due back in court on Monday.
