14 DAY TRIAL // Shots were fired outside a South Side Catholic Church, in Chicago, as hundreds gathered to mourn the death of a leader of the Gangster Disciples gang. Two men were shot, one dying on the spot.
The men were attending the funeral service of 32-year-old James Holman, also killed in a gang feud, Inquisitr writes.
The victim that incurred fatal wounds was identified by the Cook County coroner's office as 21-year-old Sherman Miller. He was taken to Stroger Hospital after the incident, where he was pronounced dead.
The second victim, a 26-year-old male, is yet to be identified. He suffered serious injuries and finds himself in “extremely critical condition.”
One of the victims was armed, police reports say. A second gun, presumably the murder weapon, was recovered in the proximity of the church.
The incident occurred after the eulogy, with several men shooting at the crowd.
“That’s when all the gunfire broke out and it was just crazy. [...] People were hollering and screaming and kids running everywhere,” Reverend Corey Brooks, officiating the sermon, describes.
“Now we are living at a day and time where these younger criminals have no regard for life or for street rules,” he adds.
According to Wikipedia, The Black Gangster Disciple Nation was formed in the late 1960s, as two gangs joined forces – the Black Disciples and the Supreme Gangsters. They initiated a political movement for “Growth and Development” in the 1990s.
At the moment, Chicago is registering 60 percent of all homicides as gang-related. Out of those, a quarter of the year's 470 homicide victims were identified as members of the Gangster Disciples. Recent conflicts between the Gangster Disciples and the Black Disciples have increased the body count.
St. Columbianus Church, where the attack took place, is known for being Al Capone's preferred place of worship, the infamous gangster having attended mass there daily with his wife, Chicago Tribune notes.