CHICAGO — Marla Stogner’s oldest son, Jalen, was helping her wash the family clothes at a Back of the Yards laundry when he was shot.
The alleged shooter, Alan Padilla, a 17-year-old just like her son, then pointed the gun at her and stood still.
“Then he just ran off,” she said. “We may have been at the laundromat three minutes — we had just pulled up.”
On Aug. 31, Stogner and his two brothers were unloading laundry bags from the car in the 4800 block of South Ashland Avenue. Padilla walked past her son, according to Marla Stogner. From the car, she could see Padilla say something that upset her son before the shots were fired.
“I know you’re not supposed to question God, but why did my son have to die like that?” she asked. “Who said you can’t go out and wash clothes?”
Stogner was later pronounced dead at Stroger Hospital, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
Padilla was charged with his murder, according to Chicago police.
Marla Stogner said her son wasn’t in a gang, but he had been a victim of gang violence in the past. He was beat up when he was 14, and his jaw had been broken, she said.
“He had some issues going on as far as kids messing with him, trying to get him in gangs and whatnot,” she said. “He was angry and bitter after his jaw got broken. … It was like every avenue I tried to save him wasn’t enough.”
