Darryl Green, a 16-year-old Chicago boy, was shot and killed for reportedly refusing to join a gang and has become the subject of an online campaign from a conservative website, starting the #JusticefForDarryl term on Twitter.
“He never goes anywhere. It’s just so shocking for this to happen to anyone,” Juanita Green Bonner, his aunt, told ABC Chicago last week.
Green’s body was found near a boarded up home at he 6500-block of South Damen in the West Englewood neighborhood.
Relatives told the station Green, a shy teenager who went to Harper High School, was likely killed because he would not join a local gang.
ABC reported that when his body was discovered, it was badly decomposed but according to the Chicago Tribune, an autopsy on Friday showed he was shot to death.
It reported that police officers are conducting an investigation into his death.
“It’s somebody’s child. . .you know, just laying down on that ground, dead. You know, just another life gone,” Eola States, an Englewood resident, told ABC.
Green’s death became the focus of a campaign by conservative website Breitbart.com that stressed residents of the United States to focus on Green’s death, rather than the slaying of Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old from Florida that became the subject of protests after his killer, George Zimmerman, was acquitted Saturday night.
The website said that many mainstream media outlets have not covered the teen’s death and pointed users to the #JusticeForDarryl hashtag on Twitter.
“Neither have any other politicians, including local Congressmen Danny Davis and Bobby Rush, or Mayor Rahm Emanuel” talked about Green’s death, it said. “Neither has anyone at MSNBC, CNN, ABC News, NBC News, CBS News, The Washington Post, Associated Press, Reuters, or throughout the Hollywood community.”
As of Monday, the campaign got more than 141,000 “likes” on Facebook.
The finding of Green’s body comes amid a rash of weekend shootings in Chicago--which some residents have termed as “Chiraq” due to the violence.
Over the long Fourth of July weekend, more than 70 people were shot and wounded and 12 were killed. During the most recent weekend, at least three people were killed and numerous others were shot.
Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said earlier this month that the murders aren’t “acceptable” but stressed that the murder rate in 2013 is lower than in 2012.
“While to date we’ve had significantly fewer shootings and significantly fewer murders this year, there’s more work to be done and we won’t rest until everyone in Chicago enjoys the same sense of safety,” McCarthy told NBC at the time.
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