Dec. 03--Just last week, Anthony Bowers' 92-year-old mother bought her son a car so he wouldn't have to risk the bus ride to his job as a school bus driver.
Police say Bowers, 61, was getting into the car around 6 a.m. Thursday, on his way to Jewel's Bus Co., when someone walked up and shot him in the head. He was pronounced dead on the scene, just doors from where he lived in the 12000 block of South Michigan Avenue in West Pullman.
"He was scared about what is going on in the world, so my mother got him a car," said his youngest sister, Veronica Bowers. "Before, he would get up at 5 a.m. and stand on the bus stop to get to work, and that just wasn't safe.
"He was the nicest person," she added as their mother cried loudly in the background, asking for prayers. "If someone was trying to rob him, he would've given it to him."
Veronica Bowers said police have told the family that surveillance video shows the gunman walking up to Bowers and then running into a nearby gangway after firing one shot. Police reported no one in custody.
Bowers was the fourth of eight children, according to his sister. He was an Army veteran who worked as a parking lot attendant in the Loop for about 35 years before getting hired by Jewel's about eight years ago. He was married for 37 years but had no children, the sister said.
"My brother had no enemies," she said. "He went to church and he stayed to himself. Whoever did this ... have mercy on your soul. You took a person away from his family too early, and you will get what you deserve."
