EAST CHICAGO | Gangs are growing bolder in East Chicago, a trend illustrated by a brazen daytime homicide near a parade route Sunday afternoon, Police Chief Angelo Machuca Jr. said.
"It's time for citizens to take our streets back," Machuca said.
"Parents have got to get involved. Even when your child says he is not in a gang, watch out for the signs."
Police believe a gang rivalry sparked the fatal shooting of Henry Gonzalez, 22, of Hammond, one block west of the Puerto Rican parade route on Indianapolis Boulevard, Machuca said. Police say Gonzalez was a member of the Latin Kings street gang.
Investigators on Wednesday were waiting for ballistics lab results, Machuca said. Officers arrested a "person of interest" Sunday, but he was released without charges. Police may return to that person as a suspect later, depending on the lab results, Machuca said.
Machuca said he saw people along the parade route showing the markings of gang membership shortly before someone gunned down Gonzalez on a city sidewalk at 1:40 p.m. Sunday.
"They're just getting bolder," Machuca said.
In the area where Sunday's slaying took place, children played in parks and yards on a cloudless Wednesday afternoon while a priest gave a Spanish-language Mass at St. Mary Catholic Church. Around the corner, plainclothes officers kicked through lawns in the 4300 block of Magoun Avenue, where Gonzalez was shot on the west sidewalk.
"My little grandson was walking out here. He could have gotten the bullet," said a woman on Magoun Avenue, whom The Times chose not to identify.
"Bullets don't have no eyes."
Another woman managed her two small children at a nearby playground Wednesday afternoon. The woman, whom The Times also chose not to identify, said she moved to East Chicago from Chicago because she wanted to protect her children from Chicago's violence. She sees young gang members in her neighborhood, she said.
"It's getting worse," she said.
Still, the women agreed Sunday's violence was unusual.
"This is a very quiet neighborhood," the Magoun Avenue resident said.
Machuca emphasized that most East Chicagoans follow laws and shun gangs. He called the Gonzalez killing an "isolated incident" and said police are trying to stamp out gang activities. He said only two of the city's seven murder victims in 2008 were from East Chicago.
Although Gonzalez was listed at a Hammond address, he was arrested in May 2007 in connection with another infamous homicide attributed to gang rivalries in East Chicago: the killing of 7-year-old Angel Silvas. In that case, charges accusing Gonzalez of assisting a criminal and carrying a handgun without a license later were dropped, along with murder charges against another man.
East Chicago police and the Gang Response Investigative Team are investigating the killing. Machuca asked anyone with information to call East Chicago's anonymous tip line at (219) 391-8500.
Viva newspaper Managing Editor Lisette Guillen contributed to this story.
