About 50 individuals gathered at an Evanston church Tuesday for a memorial service honoring 4 individuals who had been shot and killed as they slept on a Blue Line practice earlier this month, in addition to quite a few different individuals experiencing homelessness who had died within the previous 12 months.
The deaths of Margaret Miller Johnson, Sean Jones, Adrian Collins and Simeon Bihesi have renewed scrutiny round security and safety on the CTA and shocked those that work with Chicago-area homeless individuals. Authorities arrested and charged 30-year-old Rhianni Davis with homicide shortly after the shootings. No potential motive has but emerged within the case and Davis was ordered detained pending trial.
Betty Bogg, CEO of Connections for the Homeless, mentioned at a information convention at Lake Avenue Church earlier than the service that whereas individuals with no place to stay are vulnerable to untimely deaths, “it by no means actually occurred to us that this may occur.”
Connections had labored with Miller Johnson and her husband beginning in 2018, Bogg mentioned. They’d been dwelling out of their truck on the time and she or he remembered how excited they’d been after they had been positioned within the group’s lodge shelter program. The group had final heard that Miller Johnson had been dwelling in Des Plaines, however hadn’t been in contact along with her since January.
It wasn’t clear how Miller Johnson wound up sleeping on the practice on Labor Day morning.
The group’s board president, Pastor Monté Dillard, mentioned the memorial was a possibility to grieve and condemn “this act of brutality directed at a few of our society’s most weak members.”
He additionally addressed family members of individuals being honored on the service.
“To every of the households who you’ll hear from at the moment, we wish you to know that we don’t solely see your grief, however we stock it,” he mentioned.
A desk holding flowers, an image of Miller Johnson and different deceased individuals who had obtained companies from the group stood behind Dillard. The group has hosted memorials for its deceased purchasers since 2019, in response to Bogg.
“There’s this notion that unhoused persons are simply by themselves and utterly with none connection, and that’s typically not the case,” she mentioned.
Miller Johnson’s sisters attended the information convention and memorial however declined to talk. Media members had been requested to depart the service after the popularity of Miller Johnson and the opposite individuals who died on the Blue Line.
Bogg remembered Miller Johnson as a caring, clever lady who sorted her husband. She defied many stereotypes about homeless individuals, Bogg added, with a university diploma and a husband.
She added that the shootings have rattled different homeless individuals who obtain companies from Connections and for whom the CTA could be a “comparatively protected” choice to get some relaxation.
“It’s terrifying to suppose that the one place that you just thought perhaps you’d be OK, you’re positively not OK,” Bogg mentioned. “Being killed on this manner isn’t one thing that folks have had within the forefronts of their thoughts.”
Davis’ subsequent court docket look is about for Friday, data present.
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