In the heat of summer, amid the steady thump of rap music, the folks on South Parnell Avenue like to sit on their stoops nursing cans of Old Milwaukee and watching the cars go by. There's not a whole lot else to do on Parnell, a dead-end street tucked away in the blighted neighborhood of Englewood on Chicago's South Side--especially when you're out of work and out of patience trying to find it. So residents spend their time sitting outside and getting the lay of the land by scoping out passing cars. They see somebody in an old clunker and know the rider's just scraping to get by in another low-wage gig. They spot somebody in one of those jazzed-up numbers, a sport-ute or a low-riding classic, and it's a good hunch the occupant is a roller in the drug game. In the end, of course, it doesn't really matter much how passersby earn their keep. So long as they slow down a bit when they cruise Parnell and watch out for all the kids ripping and running about.
Most cabbies don't venture down Parnell anymore. They say it's too deadly, a place where their chances of getting beaten or murdered for money outweigh the chances of driving away with a good tip. Somehow, though, the Blue Bunny ice-cream truck seems to enjoy safe passage. Every few hours, the old-fashioned white van graced with a goofy baby-blue rabbit comes rolling up playing Pop Goes the Weasel. But the trip is mostly in vain. Kids have long ago learned that a nickel in their pocket is hardly enough to purchase a Popsicle, let alone a toasted-almond bar.
Just over a week ago, seven-year-old "R." was trying to gamble his way into some extra money. The 4-ft. Jordan wannabe challenged his 6-ft. neighbor to a pickup game played with a makeshift basketball hoop fashioned from a milk crate and plywood. "R. said, 'Put your 15 up,' and he threw 15[cents] on the ground," says Demetrius Tulloch, 20. "R. was always saying, 'Put your money up.'" And as always, Tulloch let the boy win his loose change. Just around the corner at the Wash Factory, R.'s eight-year-old buddy "E." was hanging around in hopes of earning some spending money. More soft-spoken than R. but no less ambitious, E. made a routine of dropping in to help manager Shirley Blanton keep the place clean. "He was always willing to pick up a broom," Blanton says.
While the two boys were hustling up change that afternoon, Chicago police were out canvassing the neighborhood for a killer. And when they were finished, R. and E. (their real names have not been released because they are minors) would get the rap for the murder of 11-year-old Ryan Harris, whose body had been discovered in the high weeds of a vacant lot, her head smashed with a rock, her mouth stuffed with her panties. There were signs of sexual assault. Police officers had brought R. and E. in for questioning as witnesses, and when the two boys were called back, their stories changed. Under interrogation, they told on each other. The two are now among the youngest murder suspects in the U.S.
Beyond the shock that seven- and eight-year-old boys might be capable of committing such a crime, there was much hand wringing over how justice should be dispensed. "These kids have no idea what's happening to them," says Cook County public guardian Patrick Murphy. "Kids this young have short attention spans. They would tell the police anything in hopes of getting out of there to go watch TV."