For most Chicago Public School students, Monday represented a routine return to the hallways and books after spring vacation, a day to catch up with friends and buckle down for the homestretch of the school year.
But for the students of Crane Tech High School on the West Side, some of whom had not been back to school since 18-year-old student Ruben Ivy was killed outside the school March 7, there were many signs that things had not yet returned to normal.
A student couldn’t ignore the pockets of three or four policeman posted at each street corner, more than double the presence on duty before Ivy’s shooting. Or the many different community leaders and organizations who patrolled the streets before and after school, offering handshakes and counseling. Or the TV cameras stationed across the street, and the reporters asking them how they felt.
Underneath all the extra attention, mixed feelings of sorrow and fear continued to swirl around Ivy’s slaying, allegedly by a fellow Crane student, 15-year-old DeVonte Smith. Many said they had stayed home after the shooting or had been kept home by their parents, for fear of further violence.
“I missed a whole week of school because I didn’t want to fight in somebody else’s battle” said Tony Walton, 17. He and his sister Antoinette, 16, who live in the ABLA Homes Development, said that Monday was their first day attending school in two weeks.
Attendance by students who live in the public housing development had been particularly poor since the shooting, officials said.
On Monday, volunteers including Ald. Robert Fioretti (2nd) and Crane Tech Principal Richard Smith walked students from the ABLA Community Center three blocks to catch a bus — which was followed on its route by a police car — as part of “Operation Safe Passage.”
One student in the group, Andrew Brown, 17, said he appreciated the effort but worried that the escorts couldn’t protect every corner.
“Right now we’re safe, since we’ve got people to escort us to school,” Brown said. “But 30 minutes after school is when it gets dangerous.”
One frequently-mentioned hot spot of trouble along the route between Crane Tech and ABLA Homes, the switch from the Ashland bus to the Jackson bus at the corner of Ashland Avenue and Jackson Street, was under the watchful eye of plainclothes police officers Monday afternoon. But most students on the bus appeared oblivious to the extra attention, sitting on each other’s laps and laughing as they discussed their first day back.
“It went fine, it was pretty regular,” said Nicole Lindsey, 17.
“It’s like it never happened,” said her friend, Tay-Tay Austin, 16, about Ivy’s killing 17 days ago.
Many of the community leaders that stood watch outside of Crane Tech also worried that the students’ muted response to the violence was only skin-deep.
“You see these kids walking out like they’re under hypnosis,” said Marvin Edwards, chairperson of 100 Men Standing, a Cabrini-Green group advocating against gangs and gun violence that has kept watch outside Crane Tech every afternoon since the shooting.
“There’s a lot of hurt in them, the kids are just lost right now,” Edwards said.
