Teba Stewart said her 13-year-old son should have been shopping for school supplies, eating all the food from her fridge and taking over the TV in her bedroom Tuesday.
Instead, she and dozens of others were remembering her son, Ashawn Davis, who was fatally shot Sunday night inside an apartment in Edgewater.
“I just want justice. … That’s all I want, right here, justice for my kid, my NBA player,” Stewart said, pointing to two large photos of Ashawn, who played basketball at Swift Elementary. “That’s all I want right now. If y’all can do that for me, I can sleep, I can eat, I can put a smile back on my face.”
As the crowd, mostly dressed in Ashawn’s favorite color of light blue, released blue and white balloons near the corner of Division and Halsted streets, they shouted “Doodie,” Stewart’s nickname for Ashawn. Many cried as they watched the balloons drift into the sky.
Ashawn grew up near Cabrini Green with two older sisters, 15 and 18. When the boy was around 10, Stewart moved with her family to Iowa because she was worried about the violence in the city, she said. They eventually moved back to Chicago and found a place in Edgewater.
Shawn Childs, Ashawn’s uncle and founder of the anti-violence groups House of Hope Foundation and No Kids Die in the Chi, said his nephew was put in tough situations growing up around gangs and violence.
“He was a regular kid. He was what you would call the average kid trying to find his way,” Childs said, adding that Ashawn had never been in trouble.
“He was a great kid. He played basketball, rapped, smiled all day,” Childs said.
Ashawn was hanging out with several friends around 8:15 p.m. Sunday in an apartment in the 6000 block of North Kenmore Avenue, near his home, when officers responded to a report of a person shot.
Officers found Ashawn on the floor against a wall with a gunshot wound to his left eye, according to a Chicago police report. One shell casing was found about 4 feet away on the floor, and a bullet hole was in the ceiling near him.
A witness told police that several young men were sitting in the living room before the shooting. The witness heard a single gunshot and one of the males scream, “Get out!” the report said.
Autopsy results were pending, and police said no arrests had been made as of Tuesday night.
At least five people have been shot on the same block this year, according to Sun-Times data, several of them involving the same building where Ashawn was killed.
Ald. Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth (48th), whose ward includes the Edgewater neighborhood, was at the vigil and told the Sun-Times that she had a “really productive meeting” Tuesday with the building manager, the 24th police district commander, Chicago Public Schools officials and Ashawn’s family.
“It’s very complicated, but if we don’t get together and be on the same page about what we’re doing, it’s going to be a barrier to progressing forward,” Manaa-Hoppenworth said.
She said they discussed installing surveillance cameras around the building as well as proceeding with evictions.
Tearing up from watching Ashawn’s family and friends mourn his death, Manaa-Hoppenworth said the vigil was a “beautiful” way to remember Ashawn, but she added that “We just don’t want to have to do it again.”
“We want our kids to be safe, not only going to school on our streets but actually inside their building, so it’s going to take a lot,” she said.