WICKER PARK — Cesar Perez, the 19-year-old Wicker Park man who was shot and killed last week had dropped out of Wells High School in his sophomore year and was failed by a system that has seen increasing success in recent years, according to the East Village school's principal.
On Friday, Wells principal Rita Raichoudhiri said that after brutally beating another student in the lunchroom in 2012, Perez dropped out of school and did not return until two weeks ago, when he picked up his transcripts from a school guidance counselor.
Michael Horton, Wells' guidance counselor and Raichoudhuri said they both suspected the decision for Perez to get his transcripts was part of a court order.
Perez was released from Cook County Jail on Jan. 14 after being arrested Dec. 2 for unlawful use of a weapon. The arrest occurred after calls of shots fired near Ashland Avenue and Huron Street, said Officer Tom Sweeney, a Chicago Police spokesman.
Cara Smith, a spokeswoman for the Cook County Jail, said that Perez's bail had been reduced from $250,000 to $100,000 on Jan. 8. Smith said she did not know the reason for the reduction in ball.
Perez, who lived in the 1400 block of West Division Street, around the corner from where he was shot, died around 6:05 p.m. Wednesday in the northwest corner of Milwaukee and Ashland avenues, according to witnesses.
Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd) described the attack as a "targeted" shooting and said police have some leads they are following up on. The shooter, described a a male Hispanic in his 20s and wearing a red Chicago Bulls jacket, fled northbound on Ashland Avenue, police said.
An anonymous source close to the situation told DNAinfo Chicago that Perez was a member of the Harrison Gents and that he was believed to have been shot by a member of the Latin Jivers, a rival gang.
According to the Chicago Crime Commission, the Maniac Latin Disciples, Gangster Disciples, Latin Jivers and Harrison Gents occupy parts of the neighborhood to the east and south.
Raichoudhuri said Wells has seen a significant decline in the number of known students in gangs and has stepped up social and emotional support services during her past three years as principal. During 2012 when Perez dropped out, Raichoudhuri was working at Wells as a principal in training.
In an interview that described some of the school's successes, such as helping a homeless student to get scholarship next year at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Raichoudhuri said the school, once in the bottom 5 percent of high schools across Illinois, recently came off of academic probation and is on the upswing.
Wells, which serves 440 students, mainly black and Latino, has at any given day around 7 to 8 adults who are providing social counseling on site, with a special emphasis on 15 Wells students who are in gangs — less than the 20 to 50 gang members at Wells about five years ago, she said.
"With many urban kids, their dads are incarcerated, their moms have three jobs. There is no structure of belonging and all you want to do is feel like you belong to a peer group. And then they brainwash you to do bad things for the greater good of the group. Schools like us, we try to undo that damage. We try to undo those belief systems," Raichoudhuri said.
Wells employs a full-time social worker who has a team of 8 to 10 social work interns that assist him, she said.
On the night Perez was shot, members of the Wells soccer team were coming back from practice at a nearby field and witnessed the aftermath of the shooting, Raichoudhiuri said.
On Thursday, the school had crisis counseling that some students, including those who knew Perez, participated in, Raichoudhuri said.
Brittany Perez, 25, the oldest of four siblings in the Perez household, was lighting candles for her brother Thursday at a now-removed memorial.
"He loved his family so much. We want to find the person who did this. They robbed my little brother of his life. He was only 19," Perez said.
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