Oct. 18--Beat #0512, 3:45 a.m. Sunday, Oct. 18
A man in a red hoodie sobbed into a cellphone as he walked away from the homicide scene on the 10600 block of South Prairie Avenue in the Roseland neighborhood on the Far South Side.
"I'm sorry, uncle," he said with tears on his face. "I don't know what I'm gonna do without him."
His cousin was dead in a car up the block; he had been shot after attending a nearby party.
Titania McCain came out in her bathrobe to make sure her car didn't have any bullet holes.
The gunshots woke her up, she said, and she didn't know what happened. Nor did she expect this to happen on the block of small brick houses.
"It's scary. I've been to Saudi. I've been to Iraq. I've laid at home safe and sound and ..."
Her voice trailed off.
McCain, an Army veteran who retired in 2011, said she was stationed in Iraq from 2006 to 2007. She said she'd never seen anything like the shooting scene on her doorstep.
She knew some people were insulted by the nickname "Chiraq," she said, but not her.
"The name doesn't offend me because it's accurate," she said. "Terrorists, right here. People walking around killing people."
