There seems to be a looming target over the Sims family home on the South Side.
In 1998, Stephen Sims, 20, lost his mother to gun violence in Roseland. In 2013, he lost his 5-year-old brother, Sterling, and his stepmother to an armed robbery after the family refused to hand over their belongings. A few months later, Sims was pushed out of the back doors of a bus and jumped by five men who broke his jaw.
And on Thursday, as Sims was in his vehicle preparing to begin his shift at the Bedford Park Wal-Mart, he was approached by several men and shot to death, according to police and his family.
“You know that feeling you get when you’re nervous and paranoid?” said Sims’ father, Steven Sims, who has now lost two sons to gun violence. He sat at the kitchen table Saturday with family in the 5400 block of South Damen Avenue and drank cognac out of a plastic cup near a tall fruit basket with a pink bow.
“Anxiety, that’s it. That’s what I feel living out here.”
Sims was pronounced dead at 5:06 p.m. Thursday at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, according to the Cook County medical examiner. The Bedford Park Police Department is investigating the case.
The family said Sims was a sophomore at Malcolm X College and was studying to be a police officer. He was on Christmas break and working at the Wal-Mart to save money.
Source: Chicago Tribune |
