Quantcast

The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
Read the press release here.

Riddled With 8 Bullets, Man Says He Just Wants To Live, Not Retaliate

By  Devlin Brown and Evan F.  Moore | June 1, 2016 5:43am 

WOODLAWN — He was shot eight times last week — but survived to tell the story.

Now Deonta Sistrunk has a message to Chicago's shooters: Put down the guns and just live your life.

"If they would have gotten to know me, they probably would have been my best friends," Sistrunk, 23, said of the gunmen who riddled him with bullets Thursday night in Woodlawn.

"But them not knowing me, thinking I'm a gang member, one thing led to another. Now I'm hurt. I feel y'all made a mistake."

Sistrunk, an aspiring musician, said he was hanging out with his family around 11 p.m. that night when the shooters attacked in the 6200 block of South King Drive.

Chicago Police said Sistrunk is a documented gang member, but he disputed that label.

"Some gang members came up to me and shot me. They thought I was in a gang," Sistrunk said. "You might see tattoos on my neck, but I'm not with that gang stuff. They thought the wrong thing about me. I guess they thought I was from their set [territory]."

The bullets hit his upper body, legs and back. Sistrunk said he thought he was going to die.

"Next thing I knew, I was on the ground screaming 'God, help me,' " Sistrunk said. "A lot of people came out to help. I was in pain from my leg to my stomach. I can't walk the same and I can't breathe the same."

Paramedics took him to Stroger Hospital, where he's recovering.

"I want my life. I want to live," Sistrunk said. "I love the people in my life. I'm just trying to make it. I could be dead right now. Now, I have to be like this for my [upcoming] birthday. I have too much to live for."

Sistrunk, of Park Manor, said he wants take the opportunity to make something of himself after such a close brush with death. 

"I'm just trying to be successful. There's plenty of ways to make it out here," Sistrunk said. "The best way to try to make it is to get your high school diploma, a GED or go to college." 

He also has advice for Chicago's young people. 

"Don't draw the wrong people around y'all. It was two people I didn't know, and I'm lying here shot, because of two people I didn't know," he said. "They hurt an innocent person."

He said he wants his shooters locked up — but doesn't want to see any retaliation against them.

"I couldn't even describe y'all even if I saw you right in the middle of the day. That's why I'm going to stay to myself. ...

"Y'all ain't got to be out here gangbanging on the corner, selling drugs, throwing up gang signs. These days, you got people throwing gang signs like they going on strike or something. I mean, ya'll ain't got to do all that, man.

"Put the guns down. Stop the killing."

For more neighborhood news, listen to DNAinfo Radio here: