Mother loses fourth child to Chicago gun violence

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Shirley Chambers of Chicago had four children - three boys and a girl. Now they're all gone.

Shirley Chambers holds a picture of her son Ronnie at her home in Chicago, Illinois, January 30, 2013, Chambers had four children - three boys and a girl. Now they're all gone. The single mother will bury Ronnie on Monday. He was the last of her children - all victims of gun violence in Chicago over a period of 18 years. REUTERS/John Gress

Chambers will bury her son, Ronnie Chambers, on Monday. He was the last of the single mother's children - all victims of gun violence in Chicago over a period of 18 years.

"I was in shock, truly, because I'm just knowing that Ronnie's going to grow up and be an old man. That was in my heart," said Chambers, 54.

The loss of four siblings to the same fate illustrates the depth of Chicago's stubborn gun violence problem and the city leaders' struggle to bring it under control.

In the national debate over curbing gun violence in the wake of the Newtown school massacre, in which 20 first-graders and six adults were killed, Chicago's plight stands out. Murders, mostly committed by guns, topped 500 in 2012 for the first time in four years - even though Chicago has some of the strictest gun control laws in the country.

During the first 30 days of 2013, America's third largest city has seen 157 shootings and 42 homicides. The dead included Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-year-old girl who had performed with her school band at President Barack Obama's inauguration last week, and Ronnie "Scooby" Chambers, 33.

Chambers, a music producer and former gang member, had attended a "listening party" for an artist he was mentoring, his mother said in an interview.

Afterward, Ronnie Chambers was sitting in a parked car on the city's West Side after 2 a.m. on January 26 when someone opened fire, striking him in the head and killing him. No suspects are in custody, and police say the investigation is ongoing.

Chambers raised her four children in the city's notorious Cabrini-Green housing project, featured in the 1970s sitcom "Good Times" and known nationally for its problems with gangs and drugs. Most of the buildings have been torn down in recent years for redevelopment.

Chambers now lives in one of the newer apartments built in the neighbourhood. Sitting in her living room with her sisters, sharing photos of her children, she was soft-spoken and seemed slightly dazed by grief.

Chambers remembered taking her children to the zoo and watching them ride their "Big Wheels" tricycles. "They were very happy kids," she said.

But as the children got older, it was harder to keep them safe in a world ruled by violence. "I couldn't keep them close to me anymore because they was big now, you know, and they go places," Chambers said.

HELP OTHER MOTHERS

In 1995, Chambers' son Carlos, 18, whom she described as a "very bright, outgoing young man" who was good at math, was shot dead while walking in Chicago's South Loop.

The next child she lost was Jerome, 23, "handsome" and "respectable," who was shot and killed in April 2000 outside of a Cabrini-Green housing facility. He had just secured a job in construction.

Just three months later, a 13-year-old boy shot and killed her 15-year-old daughter LaToya steps from where Jerome died. "LaToya was so cute," Chambers recalled. "She had the prettiest smile. She was just everything to me."

Ronnie Chambers, an artist who loved banana shakes and onion rings, had spoken publicly about his past in a gang.

The Chicago Police Department said his arrest records total well over 100 pages.

But Shirley Chambers' sister, Dorothy Wayne, bristled when Shirley Chambers was asked about her son's criminal past. "In his 34 years on earth, there was nothing he could have done to make them blow half of his face off," Wayne said. "Nothing. Nothing. He didn't deserve it."

Shirley Chambers said her son was trying to turn his life around after experiencing the death of his siblings and seeing other violence in Chicago.

That was his intent when he took Chicago rapper and gang member YK, short for Yung Killa, under his wing and spoke about his gang past during an appearance on 'The Ricki Lake Show' in December.

"He's got unbelievable talent," Ronnie Chambers said on the show. "I'm just trying to keep him on the right track."

Ronnie Chambers' murder happened just three blocks from St. Agatha Catholic Church. Parish priest Larry Dowling said he has been trying to reach out to the family to help.

"My experience with the neighbourhood, it's really the lack of jobs, the lack of education and skills for the few jobs that are out there, the woefully inadequate public school system, and I just think the overall justice system," Dowling said. Those who have trouble with the law, he said, are hard pressed to find jobs once out of jail.

Although Chicago has some of the toughest gun control laws in the nation, Dowling says the lack of effective control - including tracking who purchases guns - contributes to the violence, as does domestic abuse.

Chambers said her children were victims of circumstance, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. These days, she counts on her faith in God and support from family and friends to encourage her.

She broke into tears talking about how hard she worked to take care of her children, and said she'd like to help other mothers who have lost their kids to violence. She said she'd like to reach out to Hadiya Pendleton's mother, to comfort her.

"To have to bury all your children, all of them, it's hard," said Chambers. "My life will never, ever be the same again."

Teenage student wounded in U.S. school shooting

ATLANTA (Reuters) - A 14-year-old student was wounded on Thursday in a shooting outside a middle school in Atlanta and police said another student was arrested in the latest outbreak of gun violence in a U.S. school.

The afternoon shooting occurred outside Price Middle School in Atlanta, Georgia. Neither the wounded student nor the suspected shooter were identified by authorities.

Atlanta Public Schools Superintendent Erroll Davis and Police Chief George Turner said at a news conference that multiple gunshots were fired from a small-calibre handgun outside the main school building.

One of the gunshots grazed the 14-year-old on the back of the neck but his injury was not life-threatening. He was expected to be released from hospital by Thursday evening, Davis said.

The shooter was disarmed and taken into custody minutes after the incident by an off-duty Atlanta police officer, Turner said. He said the off-duty police officer, who was armed, works at Price Middle School as a so-called resource officer, providing security.

Davis said a teacher's aide was slightly injured in the confusion that followed the shooting, but he offered no further details.

Police said they did not know how the shooter got his gun or what his motive was, but Turner said charges would be filed against him.

A national debate has raged over gun control in the United States since the shooting deaths of 20 children and six adults at a Connecticut elementary school in December.

Boy held hostage in Alabama bunker for third day

MIDLAND CITY, Alabama (Reuters) - A hostage-taking by a gunman accused of fatally shooting a school bus driver and then disappearing with a young boy into an underground bunker entered its third night on Thursday in a rural corner of southeast Alabama.

Murdered bus driver Charles Poland is seen in this undated handout photo courtesy of the Poland family and the Dale County Board of Education. REUTERS/Poland Family Handout

Law enforcement officials remained tight-lipped about the standoff near Midland City, a small town about 30 miles west of Alabama's border with Georgia, after cancelling a planned news conference.

Officials from local, state and federal agencies have been camped out by a dirt road near the bunker since Tuesday, when authorities say a gunman demanded that a student be let off a bus carrying more than 20 children home from school.

When 66-year-old driver Charles Albert Poland Jr. refused, the suspect shot him several times and fled the scene with a kindergarten student whom he appeared to have grabbed at random, officials said.

On Thursday, negotiators continued to communicate with the gunman as he remained holed up with the 5-year-old on his rural property. Area schools were closed for the remainder of the week, and residents held vigils to pray for a peaceful end to the standoff.

A scheduled evening press conference was cancelled, with law enforcement officials saying they had nothing new to report.

Michael Senn, a pastor, said the suspect, identified by neighbours as 65-year-old Jimmy Lee Dykes, apparently had equipped the bunker with electricity, TV and two to three weeks' worth of supplies.

Authorities have not officially released the names of the suspected gunman or the child, who they believe is unharmed.

"We're just encouraging everybody in this country to come together and pray for the safety, protection and the quick release of this child," Senn said.

Senn, who lives near the private dirt road that runs onto Dykes' property, told the Dothan Eagle newspaper that authorities had been able to maintain contact with Dykes through some sort of pipe, possibly made of PVC, leading into the bunker.

"They've been talking to him pretty regularly," he said.

The shooting and hostage scenario happened while a national debate rages over gun violence, especially in schools, after a gunman shot dead 20 students and six staff members at a Connecticut elementary school in December.

An Alabama lawmaker who had talked with the hostage's family said on a TV interview that they were "holding on by a thread" but comforted that the boy appeared to be receiving needed medication while held captive.

The suspect and boy, who turns 6 next week, apparently did not know each other before the shooting, said state Representative Steve Clouse.

"I think it's just a random kidnapping here for this man," Clouse said.

GUNMAN MISSED TRIAL FOR MENACING CHARGE

Neighbours said they had seen Dykes digging the bunker in his yard in the past couple of years, and recalled he often carried a shotgun and acted aggressively toward people and animals.

Ronda Wilbur, who lives across the street from Dykes, referred to him as "Mean Man" and complained he had killed her family dog by beating it with a lead pipe and then bragged about it to her husband.

Dykes had been due to appear for a bench trial on Wednesday after his arrest last month on a menacing charge involving another neighbour, court records showed.

The neighbour, James Edward Davis, told CNN the arrest stemmed from an incident on December 10 when Dykes pulled a gun on him and his young daughter. Davis said Dykes was upset because he believed Davis had driven onto his property.

Dykes' decision to take a child hostage in an underground bunker made the tense situation confronting police even more complex, said Brad Garrett, a former hostage negotiator for the FBI.

"Usually they can utilize cameras to see into buildings, but with a bunker - with impenetrable walls and one way in and one way out - that's not possible," said Garrett, who now runs an investigative consulting firm based in Virginia.

"It reduces a tactical team's ability to use the element of surprise," he added.

The adult children of the slain school bus driver remembered their father, a military veteran, as a quiet man who avoided the limelight and would have shirked at being called a hero for trying to keep the students on his bus out of harm's way.

"My dad would be like, 'what's all this fuss about? I just did what I had to do,'" son Aaron Poland said on Thursday. "My dad died to protect the children."

Russian rocket falls into sea in failed launch

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A rocket carrying a communications satellite suffered engine trouble and plunged into the Pacific Ocean shortly after launch on Friday, Russian news agencies reported.

The unsuccessful launch of the Intelsat-27 satellite was one of several setbacks for Russia's space programme in recent years, including failed satellite launches and an unsuccessful mission to study the Mars moon Phobos.

The Zenit-3SL rocket carrying the satellite suffered engine failure shortly after liftoff, state-run Itar-Tass reported, citing a Russian space industry source. The rocket is a joint production of Ukrainian and Russian companies, it said.

Intelsat-27 was to provide services for media, government and other customers in the Americas and Europe, according to the website of Luxembourg-based Intelsat.

Russia is increasing space spending and plans to send a probe to the moon in 2015, but its celebrations in 2011 of the 50th anniversary of the Soviet achievement of putting the first man in space were marred by several botched satellite launches.

Frenchs & Austrian Lost in Pangkor forest reserve found

IPOH: Three foreigners who created a stir when they called their guest house to say they were lost while hiking in a Pangkor Island forest reserve “rescued themselves” by following vehicle noises.

They are French nationals Saladin Lorene, 24, and Edmond Jonathan, 26, and Austrian Hervert Skcenkr, 55.

Nipah Guesthouse spokesman Nur Alia Loh said they had wandered from the Teluk Nipah forest reserve trail.

“They could not find the way back to the starting point. However, after walking for some time, they heard vehicle noises from a nearby road, and found their way out by following it,” she said.

The three went hiking at about 10.30am in the reserve and called the Nipah Guesthouse at 1pm to say they had lost their way.

Pangkor Fire and Rescue department chief Abdul Aziz Yahaya said its personnel located them at a main road near the airport at about 3.15pm yesterday.

Barbers raise their rates

Costlier cuts: Muniandi Kupan, 60, attending to customers at his shop in Petaling Jaya. Indian barbers will increase their rates by RM2 from today. — FAIHAN GHANI / The Star

PETALING JAYA: Indian barbers in the country have decided to raise prices for haircuts by RM2 effective today.

Malaysian Indian Hairdressers Association president K. Kaviarasan said an unanimous decision was made at a meeting here on Wednesday.

He said the barbers last increased their prices 10 years ago.

Kaviarasan said the increase was due to higher rental for the shops, increase in price for the barber’s equipment, higher electricity and water tariffs as well as the increase in salaries for workers.

“The RM11 charge for a haircut and shave has been raised to RM13 while those charging RM12 can increase it to RM14,’’ he said.

Kaviarasan said the RM9 charge for haircut and shave in Penang, Kedah, Perak, Johor, Malacca, Negri Sembilan and Pahang would be increased to RM11.

“We believe the RM2 increase will not burden customers as they usually visit the barber about once a month,” he said, adding that Indian barbers charged less than other hair salons.

He said the association would consider appropriate action against those who failed to adhere to the decision to raise the prices.

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Hasnah Toran 10:32am Jan 26 InsyaAllah pada 17hb Feb 2013 (Ahad) ini akan diadakan parent education class pertama utk tahun ini anjuran Makmal Autisme UKM.  Tempat dan tarikh seperti biasa iaitu pkl 8.30 pagi hingga 12tgh di Dewan Budiman, Fakulti Pendidikan UKM.  Penceramahnya adalah saya sendiri. Babysitting services akan diumumkan kemudian.  Yuran spt biasa RM20 seorang, RM30 utk pasangan. Walk in, pay at the door.  Tajuknya adalah DISCRETE TRIAL TRAINING yg dikatakan sbg strategi pengajaran PALING EFEKTIF untuk autisme. Dalam kelas ini, video strategi pengajaran ini akan ditunjukkan.  Juga akan dibincangkan kekuatan dan kelemahan strategi ini. TQVM.