HYDE PARK — Activist Jedidiah Brown is reported to be doing well after an apparent suicide attempt Downtown late Sunday as activists call for more support of community organizers.
Brown was taken to the University of Chicago hospital Sunday night after police talked him down when he posted live video to Facebook that he planned to kill himself.
Brown posted on Facebook Monday afternoon that he no longer wanted to kill himself.
"I'm not wanting to die anymore but whoa the pain is cutting deep," Brown said.
He said "the gloves are staying off" in his work as an activist.
"This freed a part of me that must take away the power of pain in passion," Brown said. "I must get my healing but I need Chicago to truly see why we are getting no better."
He also said he was encouraged by the "humanity" shown toward him by the Chicago Police Department as well as people and politicians from around the globe.
Brown could not be reached for comment.
Activists who rushed to help Brown on Sunday night said he’s doing much better on Monday.
“Yes, Jedidiah is OK,” said activist Lamon Reccord on a Facebook Live video on Monday morning.
Reccord could not immediately be reached for comment.
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In the video, Reccord said Brown was distraught over the death of a nephew he considered a son and his difficulties as an activist on the South Side.
“A lot of people are scared to admit they’ve been in situations like that,” Reccord said of Brown.
Other community organizers took to social media to offer support and encourage people to reach out to neighborhood activists doing difficult work during a violent year in Chicago.
South Shore community organizer Pete Essaun Keller said on Facebook he was shaken by Brown’s video. He said he thinks a lot of Chicago activists are close to the breaking point trying to deal with the spike in violence over the last year.
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“We don’t have any resources, so what are we supposed to do?” Keller said. “We’re not getting paid to do this — we’re straight up struggling.”
The past week has been especially hard for activists like Brown, who on Twitter Saturday said he was rattled by the shooting of 11-year-old Takiya Holmes at 7:40 p.m. on Saturday near Parkway Gardens on the 6300 block of South Martin Luther King Drive. That shooting followed the shooting of 12-year-old Kanari Bowers shortly before at 7:15 p.m. on the 1900 block of West 57th Street in West Englewood.
Brown had gone to Comer Children’s Hospital with Reccord Sunday afternoon to support Holmes’ family.
Reccord said Monday Brown is better now and that he feels Brown does not need to be hospitalized.
During a Monday morning call, an emergency room operator at the university said Brown could not be reached because he left the hospital early Monday before receiving treatment.
Police said Monday that the investigation of the incident that shut down Lake Shore Drive from Jackson to Balbo for 1½ hours Sunday night is still ongoing and there are currently no charges pending against Brown and that he was not in police custody.
