Pain, frustration linger a year after Halloween mass shooting in East Garfield Park

It has been a year and Vickie Patterson still struggles to walk out the door.

The East Garfield Park resident tries hard to leave the house, nudged by her therapist to overcome her fear. She’s starting to walk more instead of taking Ubers. She’s riding the bus too, though she feels the need to scan the passengers who board.

“It’s just a lot of enemies outside in this world,” she said. “You don’t know who they are.”

And when she does ride the bus, she can’t catch it at the stop across the street at California Avenue and Polk Street. That’s where she stood when a gunman opened fire as she attended an Oct. 31 vigil last year honoring a cousin who had died after complications from a surgery.

The bullets of the shooter — who remains unknown — struck 14 people, including one man who died of his wounds days later. The gunfire lasted just three seconds, police said. The wounded included Vickie Patterson, her daughter and seven more family members. One bullet is still lodged in Vickie’s left knee, another reminder that her life is forever changed.

Just four months after the July Fourth mass shooting in Highland Park drew worldwide attention, the Halloween mass shooting in the East Garfield Park neighborhood — Chicago’s highest number of victims in a single shooting incident since March 2021 — garnered immediate condemnation and concern from city leaders.

Chicago’s political brass rushed out to the West Side intersection where shots broke out. There was a flurry of statements, news conferences and a vigil. With TV cameras recording, violence prevention workers from various organizations combed the streets, passing out pamphlets and explaining resources and services available to the community.

However, the victims the Tribune spoke with say the support they were promised never meaningfully materialized. The world seemed to move on, but they cannot.

Because of the shooting, their wounds still hurt, their bills have stacked up and they face trauma every day.

Cherice Patterson, Vickie’s cousin, has one bullet stuck in her right leg too, though another bullet was removed. There’s intermittent swelling and everyday pain that only gets worse when it rains. The bullet inside her is touching a nerve, Cherice said.

“The more it heals, the worse it gets,” she said. “My leg won’t let me forget.”

The wounds have largely taken Cherice Patterson out of work. The beautician used to service at least 15 clients a day, standing for hours as she did hair. That number is now down to one or two, she said. She had always been able to provide for her family before, but it’s been hard to pay for things like gas and light.

“I never expected to be in debt like this,” she said. “It’s embarrassing.”

The extended Patterson family reminisces often about the shooting when they’re together, though it remains hard to talk about, she said. The victims included children who were 3, 11 and 13 years old at the time. Those kids don’t want to trick-or-treat this year.

“We’re really not in the mood to celebrate,” she said.

Cherice Patterson describes herself as “paranoid” and “afraid.” She has nightmares reliving the shooting. In them, she still doesn’t know where the bullets are coming from or who is behind the gun.

Despite police investigations, seemingly no one in Chicago knows who pulled the trigger.

The city’s leading elected officials responded en masse immediately after the shooting, including a day-after statement from then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who said she was working with community organizations to support victims.

At a prayer vigil two days after the shooting, Lightfoot took to the street corner where it took place, flanked by politicians including five aldermen and U.S. Rep. Danny Davis.

“We cannot allow these despicable, cowardly acts to be normalized or accepted in any way,” she said. “Are you with me on this?”

Lightfoot called on the shooters to turn themselves in and advocated for a statewide ban on assault weapons, a legislative effort that later passed in the first weeks of the General Assembly and was signed into law by Gov. J.B. Pritzker.

At the vigil, then-police Superintendent David Brown followed Lightfoot with his own tough talk, speaking directly to the shooters.

“You can run,” he said, “but you cannot hide from the Chicago Police Department.”

Brown’s words still lingered in Cherice Patterson’s mind when she spoke with the Tribune last week. She never heard again from Brown and hasn’t received updates from police, she said.

A CPD spokesperson said the department is still investigating the shooting and doesn’t have any suspects in custody.

“They’re doing a very good job of hiding,” Cherice said.

In recent weeks, CPD Superintendent Larry Snelling has repeatedly stressed that the department will be more communicative with the victims of violent crimes and their families. Snelling emphasized training will stress keeping those families aware of developments.

”That is what’s going to build that trust that you’re talking about — it’s going to get more information flowing into us. So that’s the plan and that’s why we need to work in lockstep with the community,” Snelling told City Council members during the CPD’s budget hearing Tuesday.

Cherice Patterson said she was promised therapy and financial support immediately after the shooting. The people who made the promises haven’t been in contact, she added. A therapist came to her house twice, but didn’t return. She had been going to physical therapy, but now goes to the gym by herself instead.

Not hearing who shot up her family is scary, because while she doesn’t know who the shooter is, they surely know who the Pattersons are, she said. She doesn’t like to go outside.

The first big event she went to after the shooting was a birthday party for a cousin, Christopher Patterson, who had helped her recover with money and bedside support. She had a great time, she said.

Christopher Patterson was shot and killed less than a month later.

She said her cousin was “funny, goofy, smiley” and had seven kids. He’d just gotten a car dealer license, she said.

The man who died of wounds suffered in the Halloween shooting, Pierre Riley, had been beloved too, Vickie Patterson said. When the shots broke out, Riley, 48, shoved down to safety Vickie’s 21-year-old daughter, who was only grazed by a bullet on her back.

Vickie Patterson said she attended Riley’s funeral, but not his repass: There were too many people there. Vickie’s own son was shot and killed in 2016. He was 22, she said.

“It’s just too much,” she said.

She returned to her job as a custodian three months after the 2022 shooting. She can use her leg, but it swells up.

“I try not to do too much, but I got to work,” she said. “If you don’t work, can’t eat.”

She attends therapy on Tuesdays, a service she was connected to by the Garfield Park nonprofit Breakthrough Urban Ministries. Her family also received much-appreciated Christmas donations from nearby Good Hope Freewill Baptist Church.

But otherwise, Vickie said, the Pattersons have been on their own. She wonders if people don’t see her and her family as worthy in part because of their neighborhood and because they are Black.

“It’s just a messed up world,” she said. “People choose to help who they want to help.”

The family’s GoFundMe had as of Friday received $10,887 that was split among the many wounded.

Like Cherice, and Vickie’s cousin Conttina Patterson, Vickie filled out an application for reimbursed expenses related to the shooting through the state’s Crime Victim Compensation Program. However, the three women have not received money from the program, which can take hundreds of days to review applications and distribute funds.

Conttina Patterson, Cherice’s sister, heard she would receive $700. She needed two major surgeries and a skin and muscle graft. The bullet that struck her broke a bone and split a nerve in her left leg’s fibula, leaving the appendage numb.

She was the last survivor out of the hospital and remained unable to return to work as a clinical referral specialist for three months. The time away has left her still behind on bills. She went into her savings, money she hoped would in part help put her grandchildren through college. She takes extra care of them because their father, her son, was killed in a 2019 car accident, she said.

People had seemed to be rooting for the Patterson family when the attack they suffered was still in the news, Conttina said. She thought there would be support.

“None of that was there for me,” she said. “You just have to pick up the pieces and keep it moving.”

The victims did get $1,000 from the nonprofit Breakthrough, she said. However, she didn’t hear from Lightfoot’s office after the mayor’s speech, she said.

“That was it. It was like nothing, nothing, nothing was done,” she said.

“We’re still here. We’re still alive,” Conttina Patterson added. “But things are not 100%. And they will never be.”

There have been 56 shootings in which at least four people were shot in Illinois since Oct. 31 last year, including 39 in Chicago, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The statewide mass shootings have left 57 people dead and another 235 wounded.

Conttina Patterson said she’s been thinking about the anniversary approaching in just a few days. She can still clearly remember what happened.

The mourners who gathered to honor a cousin killed by surgery complications were starting to leave. Conttina heard what she thought was gunfire. She saw people running and realized she was standing alone. She fled, heard another volley of shots and felt a bullet pierce her leg. She kept running, but knew it was bad because of the pain.

Her 6-year-old granddaughter had been wearing a Halloween costume. The girl was dressed as a unicorn.

Chicago Tribune’s Sam Charles contributed.

jsheridan@chicagotribune.com