WEST RIDGE — Jeff Ruby was taking his two kids to see a late afternoon showing of "Zootopia." They ended up witnessing the murder of Evanston teen Antonio Johnson.
Johnson was memorialized near where he died on Ridge Boulevard two weeks later by members of the community and sisters at St. Scholastica Monastery. His death on March 23 was one of five in the West Ridge neighborhood this year.
In all, at least 18 people have been shot in 17 different incidents, five of those victims dying from their wounds — Johnson, Kyara Newell, Johan Jean, Kaysar Chako and Miguel Bahena — more than any other year since at least 2010, according to data compiled by DNAinfo.
At 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Benedictine Sisters of St. Scholastica will hold another peace vigil at 7430 N. Ridge Blvd., this time to pay respect to the members of the community who have been victims of gun violence, as well as to honor the United Nations International Day of Peace.
"Seeing that the shootings continue (another two young people were shot on Memorial Day by us), we want to continue to be a witness for peace and bring together neighbors," a representative of the monastery said Monday. "We’re stronger together."
Shootings are among a handful of crimes seeing an increase in West Ridge in the past year, though crime overall has been nearly cut in half over the past decade.
The neighborhood has seen an almost 66 percent rise in robberies, 36.21 percent increase in car thefts and a 15.84 percent uptick in assaults since the start of 2016, an analysis of Chicago Police data by DNAInfo shows.
Between robberies, car thefts, assaults, batteries, burglaries and homicides, crime in the neighborhood has risen about 1.92 percent this year, data shows.
Car thefts were the only thefts included in the roundup because in 2011 only instances of felony theft, over $500, began to be recorded among public data.
But in taking a larger step back, West Ridge has overall experienced a 45.76 percent drop in those incidents over the last 10 years.
In 2006, reports of robberies, burglaries, assaults, batteries, car theft and homicides peaked with an average of about 220 per month, finishing with 2,640 reports of those incidents that year.
In 2007, that number decreased dramatically before beginning to rise again in 2008 and 2009.
By 2010, reports of crime in the neighborhood steadily began to drop, which continued until 2016.
Between January and August of this year, the number of those crimes has averaged about 179 per month, still a decrease of about 41 incidents each month.
As with neighboring Rogers Park and Edgewater, which also saw increases of between about 3-10 percent, crime has overall fallen but jumped in the last year.
The shootings have been difficult still for the neighborhood, which averaged less than six a year between 2010-2015.
In July, Rogers Park District Cmdr. Roberto Nieves and Deputy Supt. John Escalante met with West Ridge residents and attributed the shootings to gang violence in the neighborhood.
"The gangs that affect us here, believe it or not, are the same ones in Englewood, in Skokie," Nieves said at the time. "They travel."
Ruby, who recently moved to Hyde Park so his kids could be closer to their school, said he'd been unaware of the neighborhood's history with gangs until he saw Johnson shot.
"Whether it's realistic or not, in West Ridge the truth is I had no idea that there was lots of gang activity at all in that area until this happened and I started doing research on it," Ruby said. "To me, it looked like any other block in Chicago, or any other stretch in Chicago — to me it was nothing special, so it was a bit of an eye-opener."
Since then, he said his kids don't talk about it much, but know their dad is there when they're ready to open up.
Ruby, a writer who penned a personal essay for Crain's after his experience, said Monday he has talked to his kids about who Johnson was after being determined to learn more about the young man he saw in his dying moments.
"It was really valuable to me learning more about Antonio Johnson so that he wasn't just some name, some kid, some gangbanger, whatever, just another statistic," Ruby said. "He was a real person, and had problems that were identifiable to me."
Far North Side and Evanston residents gather for a vigil to remember Antonio Johnson. [DNAinfo/Linze Rice]
Since that day, Ruby said he has changed, but in a way that's hard to nail down.
He remains a cautious and vigilant citizen, but doesn't want to teach his children to live in fear of the city or develop a fear of other people.
He said at times he feels helpless and powerless to not just stop violence, but to start hard conversations that could lead to a more united public.
Complex issues like public education, a war on drugs, the availability of gangs and instances of police brutality all play into the roots of community violence, and all require significant reforms before things like shootings will go down, Ruby said.
In the meantime, he said he wants to remain raising his family in Chicago, a place he loves to call home, but is much less "naive" when it comes to the long arms of violence.
"Because I love Chicago, it really bums me out when people outside Chicago looked at [my] article and said, 'Wow, you've got to get out, it's out of control," Ruby said. "I can understand that being their response, because it is really extreme what we saw, really shocking. But Chicago on a daily basis for a large swath of people is not a war zone. And, for a large a swath of people, unfortunately it is a war zone.
"To paint with sort of this broad brush and say that this massive city has crumbled, it hurts me," he said. "I don't want people to think that. Then you take a look at the statistics, and you start to wonder."
For more neighborhood news, listen to DNAinfo Radio here:
