CHICAGO - Family and friends believe 16-year-old Derrion Albert was beaten to death by other teens because he resisted joining a gang that was forming near Fenger High School on the Far South Side.
"I think they tried to recruit him and he said no and he just tried to go home and they just jumped on him,'' said the Rev. Victor Grandberry, who met with Derrion's family after Thursday night's murder and is acting as their spokesman.
"He was just a nice young man that grew up in the community," added Grandberry, who's been on Fenger's Local School Council for eight years. "Folks just bullied on him, they tried to rob him, they tried to do everything they can." The Fenger sophomore was walking from the school to a nearby bus stop near 111th and Wallace when he was attacked about 3 p.m., police said. Witnesses said a group of teens punched and kicked him in a vacant lot next to the Agape Community Center in the Roseland community. He was pronounced dead three hours later.
People in the area came to Derrion's assistance, and he was taken to Roseland Community Hospital, a little more than a block away, before being transferred Christ Medical Center, police said.
"He was walking to the bus stop but he kept walking because he saw these guys,'' said Grandberry, who said he spoke to witnesses from the school, as well as friends of Derrion. "He didn't have nothing to do with it, he tried to avoid it but he couldn't avoid it.''
Grandberry said gang problems have escalated in the area as rivalry has sharpened between the Gangster Disciples street gang and members of a new gang called ETC. But he did not know if there was a connection between Derrion's slaying and the firing of shots outside the school earlier in the day that police said was gang-related.
Grandberry faulted school and police officials for not beefing up patrols in the neighborhood. He said there were fights at the school on Wednesday that sparked the shooting at the school Thursday.
"That should have let them know to have more police protection in the area,'' said Grandberry.
He said schools are closed today, but warned there could be more violence at the school when classes resume Monday. Grandberry said he has reached out to police officials but has been unsuccessful in contacting Chicago Public Schools chief Ron Huberman.
Family said Derrion was a good student and helpful child. He had lived with his younger sister's grandmother for the last two years but recently moved in with a cousin, according to the grandmother, Eunice Cross.
Cross said Derrion had lived with her on and off since his grandmother died. He did not want to live with his mother in Downstate Mount Vernon. His mother was expected to come to Chicago today to be with relatives, including the cousin Derrion was staying with, Cross said.
Derrion "wasn't a problem child," always obeying her, helping out when asked to take the trash out or doing other chores around the house, Cross said.
"He never gave me trouble. He wasn't disrespectful at all," Cross said. "He was a smart boy, he went to school, and he got good grades." He doted on his sister and treated Cross like a grandmother, she said.
In addition to his 10-year-old half-sister, Derrion also has a half-brother and half-sister who are his father's children, Cross said.
Cross' own daughter, Monique Cross, was slain by an estranged boyfriend in 2004. She said she finds it difficult to sum up a life in a few sentences. "It's pretty hard for me to put into words for anyone what someone was like."
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