CHICAGO _ Doreen Angone crossed Union Avenue with a drill Wednesday afternoon, toting a bag of stuffed animals and toys and photos of 8-year-old Dajore Wilson, who had been shot here Monday night.
She placed the photos back into clear plastic bags, attached to black cardboard against the tree that protected the photos from the rain. She left the bag at the tree's base for the family to set out the stuffed animals.
Two nights earlier, someone had opened fire on the car Dajore's father, D'Andre Wilson, was driving at Union's intersection with 47th Street. Dajore, her father and a friend were shot. Her mother was injured by broken glass. Only Dajore died.
Relatives of Dajore and neighbors near the scene still haven't fully processed what happened here. Dajore's family is grieving, her father from his hospital bed, as are neighbors who tried to help in the minutes before police and paramedics arrived.
The 8-year-old's family had left Dajore's grandmother's home nearby and were heading to Fairplay Foods, a block from the shooting, for groceries Monday night. D'Andre Wilson drove, his daughter in the back seat with a family friend, and Dajore's mother in the front seat.
After grocery shopping, the father planned to take Dajore back to his house and spend time with her and her twin brother, Damani, D'Andre Wilson said.
Their car was stopped at a red light when a man in all black got out of a Dodge Charger that was behind their car, and as the light turned green, the man started shooting, according to police sources.
They all ducked when they heard gunfire, D'Andre Wilson said from his hospital bed Wednesday afternoon. Rounds hit the dashboard. His car crashed into a tree.
The Charger spun around and headed south.
Angone, who lives near the intersection, heard the first volley of gunfire and started walking toward her back porch. She heard a commotion outside, but she wasn't sure what it was. She heard a second volley and started down her stairs.
Across the street, Shanna Lamb was outside with her daughter and her daughter's friend, chopping wood for a fire, she recalled. She rushed them behind a generator when the shooting started. She moved them to a doorway, thinking she'd kick the door down if she needed to.
Angone stepped toward her alley, between a trailer and her garage, and heard a car crash into a tree. Lamb doesn't remember hearing the crash, but saw the car and rushed the kids upstairs. She yelled at the kids inside, and others were yelling too.
Angone waited at the alley, trying to cross while cars passed. Farther south, the black Charger sped past a firehouse. Firefighters were surprised by the speed, 80 to 100 mph they later told police.
When Angone made it across the street, Dajore lay on the ground while her mother hunched over her, pleading with the girl to stay awake. She stood with Dajore's mother, not sure what to do.
"Dajore, breathe, breathe. It's Mommy, please breathe," she said to her daughter.
Dajore's father looked to the apartment nearby, made eye contact with Lamb's friend and pleaded for help.
"Please help us," he yelled. "They just shot my baby."
"They shot the baby," Lamb yelled to people who had taken refuge inside. Outside, she yelled for someone to start CPR and ran down the stairs.
After a couple of seconds, Angone saw Lamb running down the steps toward the car. Angone was yelling while trying to get Dajore's mother away, telling her to let Lamb do CPR.
Dajore wasn't moving and didn't appear to be breathing. Angone asked Lamb if she was calm enough to work on the girl, and she said she was. Angone guided Dajore's mother away.
Lamb had complete focus on the child. By the time she bent over the girl and started chest compressions, she could not hear anyone else in the car and had forgotten they were there. She thought that if she could at least get the little girl's heart pumping, she may have a chance at survival.
As Angone guided the mother, she noticed a woman in the back seat who appeared near to passing out. Angone grabbed her arm and asked if she was OK.
"I think I was shot in my back," she told Angone, who saw the burn holes in her T-shirt from where she had been shot.
In the front seat, D'Andre Wilson screamed and prayed. His leg was broken, he couldn't move, and he craned his neck and body around to look through the back passenger door, where Lamb was trying to help Dajore.
"That's my baby, I want my baby, is my baby OK?" D'Andre Wilson said to Angone. She told him that they were working on the baby, that she should be OK.
Lamb pleaded with the girl while she worked on her. She had never performed CPR on a child or a gunshot victim before, but in the moment she just moved to help.
"Stay with your mom, listen to your mom's voice, baby," Lamb said. She's not sure the girl heard her. But she tried.
A neighbor thought she was pressing too hard, and Lamb replied that she was trained. Police started to arrive, and someone told Lamb to stop, but she said she couldn't unless someone was going to take over.
The woman in the backseat, shot in the back, started getting wobbly, and an officer asked for an ambulance. Angone told the officer the front-seat victim, the girl's father, was also shot. She waited with them until other ambulances arrived.
Dajore died at Comer Children's Hospital.
Wednesday morning, a half day before a scheduled vigil, Dajore's 28-year-old uncle Reggie Ray sat alone against his car next to the memorial.
He looked at the small memorial relatives built here Tuesday night and poured himself a small drink. He came here to grieve alone.
Balloons in shades of pink. Round, star-shaped, some Mylar, some bearing the word "princess," some tied to a wooden cross secured to the tree with ribbon.
At the base stood extinguished candles and others lit by battery. Nylon and plastic flowers with pink and white butterflies.
Ray lay down flowers. An older couple passed. The man made the sign of the cross while looking down at the memorial and kissed his fingers without breaking stride.
"That was his heart," Ray said of his brother's daughter. "That was his only girl. She was stuck to him like glue. She was an angel."
Dajore had a twin brother, and Ray said the two were always together. The fraternal twins had middle names of King and Queen, D'AndreWilson said.
"Her brother, they was always close. They're all full of energy, all the kids. They all look alike, just happy kids, living a kid's life."
From his hospital bed Wednesday, her father struggled with the thought of talking to his other children about their sister's death. He struggled with the idea of Chicago as thin ice, cracking everywhere he walks, and the weight of that now that his daughter's dead.
His baby, he said, was smart.
"So smart and caring and cute. She just loved me so much. She'd make her mom jealous," D'Andre Wilson said.
She liked SpongeBob and Disney movies. Her favorite song was "Boomerang" by JoJo Siwa. She would dress up and dance, her father said. She liked the color pink.
She was a girly girl and loved fashion, including her Gucci purse and belt, he said. She pretended to be a model, the way children pretend after their dream jobs.
"Of course she was spoiled," her uncle said. "She was his only daughter."
She wanted to be a teacher, she loved school.
"All she wanted to do was schoolwork." She was fine with remote school too. As long as she could be in school, D'Andre Wilson said.
"She couldn't wait to get back to school."
She had a calm demeanor and never raised her voice.
"If I got worked up, she'd say, 'Dad, calm down,'" D'Andre Wilson said. "I've got to calm down, she kept me sane. She kept me together."
Tuesday night, a couple of relatives had a chance to thank Lamb for her care in Dajore's last moments. They gave her big hugs and thanked her for trying.
After the shooting, Lamb reached out to D'Andre Wilson through Facebook. News of the shooting had spread.
Lamb expressed condolences.
"I would like to say I fought so hard to save your baby. I wanted her to live so bad and I'll never forget her beautiful face. My thoughts and prayers are with you. I'm so very sorry."
"I love you so much," he replied. "(You) tried and I swear I love you. I saw it in yo face you wanted her to live. I could not move I can't stop crying. But thank you."
