HUMBOLDT PARK — Before Jeremy "Scottie" Collins was shot to death in Bronzeville Tuesday, he brought his father some soup to ease his recent sinus problems.
Around 5 p.m. Monday, Jerry Collins asked his son to head to Mariano's for the soup.
"He was here in about 20-25 minutes. He opened the soup up and said, 'Dad, you gon' like this here. This is’ — something I didn’t even want — ‘this is dumpling soup.’ And it was delicious. I still got the cup," said Collins, 54.
"That was the kind of person he was. He did what I asked him to do. Out of all my kids, the bottom line is, he was my right-hand man. I could lean on him, man. If I'm going to ask him to do something he may not do it right then, but he's gonna do it," said Collins.
Family members nodded in appreciation as they sat in a circle around Scottie Collins' prom picture last week at the home they shared in the 700 block of North Monticello Avenue.
After delivering the soup, Scottie — who got the nickname from his grandma when he was 2 years old — walked in and out of the house for the rest of the night, peeping his head into the room where his father was, asking, "Big man, are you all right?" Collins said.
Those are the last memories Collins has of his 26-year-old son while he was alive. Collins said the soup will always remind him of the days when the family didn't have much, but he would still bring home big bags of food from Maxwell Street Market when he got off work. The kids might not have been keen on the type of food, but they would still eat it, because their dad had brought it, he said.
Later that night Scottie, who ran an off-the-books "cab service" for friends in the neighborhood, got a call from one of his regular passengers who needed a ride to Bronzeville. Scottie operated the service to help support his 4-year-old daughter and another child on the way, his family said.
He left — and never returned home.
Around 2:20 last Tuesday morning, police found the driver of a silver car, later identified as Scottie, unresponsive in the 400 block of East 47th Street. He had been shot several times and was pronounced dead on the scene.
A 26-year-old passenger also was shot in his back and neck. He was taken to Stroger Hospital, where his condition was stabilized, police said.
But family said there was a third man, in his 40s, in the car who didn't get hit because he was slumped down in the back seat. When the shots were fired, the passenger said, "I'm hit," to which Scottie responded, "I'm hit, too. Oh my God, I can't believe this," before driving toward King Drive, a witness told the family.
Near King Drive, the car was moving fast as Scottie reared back and began coughing up blood, forcing the passenger to take Scottie's foot off the accelerator, a witness told the family. The passenger then got out of the car, moved Scottie to the passenger seat and drove a few blocks before getting out of the car, which rolled into a fire hydrant, family members said.
The family took solace in the fact that Scottie's brother, Rafael, who often rode along on the cab rides, was not with him that night. Rafael had planned to meet up with Scottie later to celebrate his 29th birthday, their father said.
"He was [about to] get in the car with him and ride, right, but I guess the angel pulled him back. It was by the grace of God he wasn't with him then. That's the good thing about it," their father said.
Rafael Collins said he and his brother would usually take a particular route in order to avoid stopping at red lights in Bronzeville.
"If I would've really known it was [dangerous] like that, I wouldn't have let my boys talk about going out south. But they've gotten grown now, so all I can do is drill it in them, but I can't watch everything they do. But if I would've known that, I would've unplugged the car or did something to say, 'Naw, that ain't happening,'" said Collins, adding that his son believed he could go anywhere since he wasn't in a gang.
Collins said Scottie was a "celebrity around the community for his big heart."
"He knew so many more people than I knew he knew. I didn’t know he knew all these people. You got people from the stores, all the stores around the neighborhood, telling you about this guy right here," Collins said, motioning toward one of the pictures of Scottie in the Collins' second-floor apartment.
Scottie was also a prankster who loved to get under the skin of his relatives. From refusing to share his hot dogs with his sister to not letting her sleep before work, he knew exactly how to tease everybody. He would unnecessarily send his high-energy father into a rant by asking for absurd loans he never actually wanted. Sometimes he would send his younger cousins in to do the dirty work, directing them to demand $20 in Scottie's name, which his father could not refuse, Collins remembered fondly.
Demario Williams, 18, a close family friend, met Scottie outside school about 10 years ago. Scottie would always tease Williams for wearing suits, especially a dapper peach-and-white outfit that he would threaten to steal from him, Williams said.
Williams said he's been looking at photo of that suit over and over since his "brother's" death.
But he also saw the softer side of Scottie.
"He saw something in me and he adopted me. He told me, 'You know you're my little brother,' and I told him, 'You my big brother.' I looked up to him," said Williams.
Williams added: "He was a good role model to me. He showed me what I needed to know. I lost my dad when I was 2, and he was the person that was there for me."
For more neighborhood news, listen to DNAinfo Radio here:
