ENGLEWOOD — David Baldwin was a loving and generous uncle who worked hard and cared deeply for his family, said co-workers of the 24-year-old who was shot dead on Labor Day.
At 9:30 a.m. Monday, Baldwin and a 26-year-old man were shot in the 6800 block of South Emerald Avenue, according to Officer Jose Estrada, a Chicago Police spokesman.
Baldwin, who was shot in his head, was taken to Christ Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said.
The older man, who was shot in the right thigh and received a graze wound to the head, was taken to Stroger Hospital, where his condition wasn't released, but he was listed as "stable," Estrada said.
Police did not provide any other information on the shooting.
After the shooting, a SWAT unit descended on the area, believing that the shooter had barricaded himself inside a nearby home. They later learned that the suspect was not inside, and no one was taken into custody.
Police said Baldwin and the other man who was shot were "documented gang members," but Baldwin had worked full-time for three years at Forman Mills, 122 W. 79th St., a retail store in Chatham.
His co-workers were having a hard time coping with the loss, said store manager Shamika Neal.
"No one's doing well, everyone's taking it very hard," Neal said, choking back tears. "He was the life of this store. Things won't be the same without him."
Baldwin mostly worked in the back of the store, sorting and stacking new shipments as they came in, Neal said.
She described him as "very loving and outspoken" and "the funniest person you'll ever meet," whose presence usually meant a morale boost for all the other employees.
"Everybody loved him," added Chatwana Matthews, the assistant store manager at Forman Mills. "He was just always trying to make somebody's day. Like if someone was in a bad mood, he'd be there to try and uplift them."
While Baldwin didn't have kids of his own, his sister's and brothers' children were "all he ever talked about," Neal said.
"They were his life," she said. "It was like they were his own kids. He was always doing stuff for them, buying them things and bringing them to school."
Baldwin was also one of the store's hardest workers, Neal said, and often took 12-hour shifts.
"He was on time every day, from 6 in the morning to 6 at night," she said. "If he ever missed a minute of work, it was so he could do something for his nieces and nephews."
His dedication made it all the more shocking that Baldwin would end up in the crossfire of gun violence, Matthews said.
"He was just trying to stay out of people's way and get to work on time and make his money, that's it," she said. "He didn't deserve none of that. He never had a negative thing to say about nobody."
Marvin Slater, who lived on Baldwin's block, said the man had worked hard to put distance between himself and the gangs that roved their corner of Englewood.
"He worked hard, he had his own apartment. ... He was taking care of him, is what he was doing," said Slater, who works in construction. "He didn't drink, didn't do drugs, didn't do nothing."
Police said Baldwin was a gang member — a description Slater scoffed at.
"They say that about everybody — they don't even know who we are," Slater said. "They could round us all up if they wanted to, everyone in the neighborhood, and call us all gang members, and people would believe them."
For more neighborhood news, listen to DNAinfo Radio here:
