Protect Me From What I Want

X picked me up a little later on Monday morning. After a long day of photographing on Sunday, we both needed a little extra rest. Today was dedicated to researching the addresses and circumstances of all the incidents that we didn’t have the proper info on yet. Before we did that we went to photograph the one location we intended to, but didn’t make it to on Sunday, the site of Emmanuel Leeks' murder in the 2100 block of North Springfield. Leeks and a woman were shot while sitting in a car at this site. The address brought us to a no parking zone in front of a vacant building on a sleepy street in Logan Square. The train passed behind to the west just a few buildings from where we were standing. One block south of the site the street dead ends into Mozart Park. There were some young kids on the baseball field closest to us, slugging balls as their dad pitched to them. With the exception of this one vacant building, the block seemed welcoming and safe.

We spent the rest of the morning researching. When we finally got as much information as we thought we could, we decided that we had time to try to get to one more location. We headed to the 1300 block of North Pulaski where Cesar Rosales was shot outside of a car wash. The car wash is in the alley right behind a busy Dunkin’ Donuts that doubles as a gas station. X said the DD is owned by a police officer. The logistics of the homicide were sort of confusing, so X suggested we ask the people at DD if they could tell us about what happened. It appeared that Rosales was shot on the street, but staggered into the alley near the car wash where he was found. The site was near a major intersection with lots of businesses so we decided we should come back when it was a bit quieter. We drove through the alley past the car wash to get a good look and discovered two women on the other side of alley who appeared to be so strung out that they had a hard time getting out of the way to let the car through.

X turned back around to get a hot dog at Jimmy’s on the corner of Pulaski & Grand before we headed home. As we pulled in there was another woman in the lot that staggered out of the way of the car. We heard her say “Hey GI Joe” as we pulled into the parking spot. While we were inside the stand, a woman passed by wearing a Jenny Holzer t-shirt that read “Protect Me From What I Want.” Somehow it seemed so out of place and simultaneously so fitting. The same woman was next to the car when we came out. X opened the car door for me and she commented on him being such a gentleman then asked if he had any change. He responded, “No thanks.” She looked confused and followed him around the car and said, “No, no, I meant do you have any change you can spare?” He declined. Heading east on Grand we were stopped at a light talking about the Gyro stand across the street. Suddenly police cars swarmed from all directions and blocked in a white van that was parked there. The light turned green and as we proceeded east, more cop cars with their lights on flew in that direction. I never found out what happened there.