First Lady Michelle Obama, personal adviser Valarie Jerrett, and Education secretary Arne Duncan all attended the funeral of slain teenager Hadiya Pendleton.
As she was being laid to rest, a break in the case. The Chicago Tribune and Associated Press report that two men were arrested in the death of the young teenager who was recently a participant in the inauguration of President Barack Obama.
The parents of the Hadiya will be invited as guest on behalf of First Lady Obama. They will be in attendance of the president's state of the union address.
These individuals mistaken her and another group of teenagers as gang members. So they ambushed them.
The Gangster Disciples is a notorious street gang. They're a domestic terrorist group. Besides Hadiya, they've targeted rapper Rick Ross this month in an apparent shooting in Florida.
Williams and Ward targeted Hadiya and other teens in the park Jan. 29 because they believed, mistakenly, they were members of the gang responsible for the shooting, he said. Ward fired the gun, police said.
Hours after Hadiya's funeral, attended by first lady Michelle Obama, police stopped Ward and Williams as they were on their way in separate cars to a friend's birthday celebration at a strip club in Harvey Saturday night, McCarthy said at a news conference at Area Central police headquarters this evening.
Hearing news of the charges, Hadiya's father Nathaniel Pendleton said this is the first time since the shooting he's had a "legitimate" smile on his face.
"I'm ecstatic that they found the two guys," he told the Tribune by phone from a Washington, D.C. restaurant, where he was with his wife, Cleopatra Cowley-Pendleton, and other relatives. "(I'm) thanking God that these two guys are off the streets, so that this doesn't happen to another innocent person."
Pendleton and his family were in the nation's capital to be guests of Obama during the State of the Union address Tuesday night.
Still, Pendleton said true closure won't come until the men are convicted. "Right now, I can say to you that the healing can start," he said.
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| Kenneth Williams and Michael Ward are charged in the killing of Hadiya Pendleton. |
The shooting in the 4400 block of South Oakenwald Avenue happened after classes were dismissed for the day during finals week at King. Hadiya, a sophomore at King, was at the park with a group of teens, primarily other students from the school, when a gunman climbed over a fence, ran to the group and started firing, police have said.
The shooter escaped in what has been described as a white Nissan vehicle, possibly driven by a getaway driver.
While police and neighbors have generally described Harsh Park and its immediate surroundings as safe, there has been an internal gang conflict brewing in the area between factions of the Gangster Disciples, police said.
The playground where Hadiya was shot was the setting for an amateur rap video posted to YouTube. The video, which also highlights the intersection at South Oakenwald and East 44th Place, uses the moniker of a local gang in an opening credit and features a rapper shown leaving the Cook County Jail, then threatening to shoot down his foes.
The video ends at a house party with a smiling teenage girl flashing gang signs at the camera.
Ward and Williams are members of the Gangster Disciples, sources said.
Ward pleaded guilty early last year in a 2011 aggravated unlawful use of a weapon case and was given two years probation, according to court records. After an arrest on criminal trespass to a vehicle last summer, he was held without bond for a few weeks, but was released after a Sept. 9, 2012, hearing.
Williams was arrested on a misdemeanor retail theft charge in October 2011, but the charge was dismissed.
Also reporting that White extremist and aging rocker Ted Nugent on behalf of Republican congressman Steve Stockman of Texas. They will be in attendance. This will be discussed shortly.
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