July 25--Joseph Campbell's body lay in a pool of blood on a West Side sidewalk as the sun began to rise early Saturday morning, hours after he had been fatally shot in the abdomen and right shoulder.
The crowds had come and gone and come again since Campbell, 32, had been shot at 12:50 a.m. -- the curious, neighbors, police, Campbell's girlfriend, and family.
But one person had yet to arrive in the 4900 block of West Hubbard Street in Austin. And then she did, just as a white body removal van pulled up to the scene.
A pair of body removal workers stepped out and knelt near Campbell, who was wearing jeans and Nike basketball shoes. There was a wad of cash lying next to his body. As they prepared to lift his body into the van, a sudden scream, followed by a series of wails, came from the eastern end of the crime scene on Hubbard east of Lavergne Avenue.
Campbell's mother, who got the news of her son's death belatedly because a family member said she turned off her phone at night, just arrived.
As soon as the body was placed into the van, she rushed past crime scene tape and past police officers and past body removal workers, screaming.
"Please let me see my baby. Please let me see my baby. Please let me see my baby," the woman repeatedly pleaded as she shoved people aside to get inside the body removal van.
A group of police officers, their arms spread wide, blocked the van's entrance and tried to calm her. The woman tried to squeeze through the space between the police officers in front of her.
"Please let me see him," she screamed.
She leaned on the shoulders of one officer with her hands and tried to jump over him into the van. But she fell down to the ground, bringing down the officer with her.
A group of Campbell's relatives on the west side of the scene rushed in to help the woman, who then collapsed on the ground, wailing.
Relatives and friends hugged the woman and rubbed her back, trying to calm her.
Next to them, officers hurried to close the doors of the white van.
Earlier Friday, Campbell had taken his 5-year-old daughter to a park on the West Side, relatives said.
"I just saw him," said Juvanna Johnson, 30, Campbell's cousin, as she stood in shock near the crime scene early Saturday morning.
Johnson said Campbell was at home in Lawndale until the evening when he decided to bicycle up to Austin where some of his acquaintances live.
Police said Campbell was walking on the sidewalk on the south side of Hubbard when someone fired gunshots. Johnson said Campbell may have been playing a dice game before he got shot.
"He was loving and caring," Johnson said. "But he was into the streets, you know. ... He had a temper."
Police said Campbell was a documented gang member. But Johnson said she did not believe her cousin had gang affiliations.
"When does it end?" Johnson said referring to the violence in the area. "I'm just trying to figure out when this ends."
Hubbard Park and the area surrounding it have been known as a spot for criminal activity in recent years, said a high-ranking officer as he stood next to the crime scene.
People sell drugs in the neighborhood, and different factions of the Four Corner Hustlers street gang also hang out in the area and fight each other, police said.
"I know it's bad here," said the officer, adding that the Hubbard Park area is one of the spots he pays particular attention to while he is on duty.
"These people don't leave their porches. They can't," added a detective as he walked by near the crime scene, investigating what happened.
Over the past year, the Austin neighborhood saw at least 36 homicides, according to Tribune data. At least five of them happened in the past month. A 21-year-old man was just shot to death on the same block as Campbell July 15.
"This young generation ... they lost," said a friend of Campbell's family as he stood next to the crime scene.
After the white body removal van drove away, Campbell's mother, surrounded by family and friends, remained at the scene.
She stood up, holding her face with her hands, and walked over to the place on a sidewalk where Campbell had lain minutes earlier.
Her sobs quieted down.
She bent down and placed her hands on the pool of her son's blood.
She continued to cry.
UPDATE -- An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported the individual who police identified as a documented gang member.
