The family of an 11-year-old boy who died Thursday morning in Lawndale after a hit-and-run is asking for the driver who fled the scene to come forward.
Ja’Lon James, who lived in Lawndale, was an honor roll student who had just finished fifth grade at Theodore Herzl Elementary School, said his grandmother, Nicole Harrison. He enjoyed dancing, TikTok and playing games, she said.
“He’s going to be one missed grandchild,” she said. “I have 13 altogether, and he’s going to be one that’s very, very missed. It’s heartbreaking.”
He is the third child this month to have been killed by a car in the city.
On June 2, 2-year-old Raphael Cardenas, who went by Rafi, was hit and killed by a driver while scooting on the 2200 block of West Eastwood Avenue in Lincoln Square, according to Chicago police. Then on June 9, 3-year-old Lily Grace Shambrook was killed in Uptown when a semitruck collided with the bicycle she was being carried on in the 1100 block of West Leland Avenue, police said.
On Thursday, James was crossing the road in the 3300 block of West 16th Street about 10:20 a.m. when he was hit, police said. He was taken to Stroger Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
James’ grandmother said it was a “typical” day for James as he and one of his brothers were going to the store to get milk when the car “came fast and hit him.”
“It was horrible,” she said. “Terrible the way he was hit. The driver knew they had hit a kid. As little as he was, knowing that you hit a kid and you just kept going like it was nothing.”
Ja’Lon James was one of seven kids in his family, including his twin brother, Ja’Len, plus three other brothers and two sisters, Harrison said.
The family was “very close,” she said, and saw each other almost every day. Harrison and all her five children, including James’ mother, Naquita Harrison, live in Chicago. A GoFundMe page has been created to help support the family.
Oboi Reed, president and CEO of the nonprofit Equiticity, said he’s lived in North Lawndale for three years and told the Tribune in an email James’ death is “heartbreaking.”
He said the city and other involved parties should first realize that the “current strategy is not working” and then “do more to re-engineer” Chicago’s streets in order to reduce traffic violence in the community.
“We need a citywide strategy, led by Black and Brown people in neighborhoods, fully resourced with the necessary levels of funding to wholesale reimagine our streets, and operationalize racial equity and mobility justice from the beginning,” he said. “This comprehensive strategy must be cultural, contextual, and structural.”
Traffic fatalities across the country soared to a 16-year high in 2021, making deaths on the road an “important national issue,” said Erica Schroeder, a spokesperson for the Chicago Department of Transportation, in an email to the Tribune Friday.
Speeding and reckless driving remain “key contributing factors behind a significant number of traffic crashes that cause fatalities,” Schroeder said.
“Any tragedy is one too many, and the city of Chicago takes a multidimensional approach to keeping our streets safe,” she said, listing speed cameras, community partnerships and policies encouraging fewer and smaller vehicles on the roadways as tools to create safer streets.
Schroeder said reversing the rise in traffic deaths will require “systematic change throughout the whole transportation industry, including changes to vehicle design.”
Police were still looking for the driver as of Friday and the investigation is ongoing. No further information was immediately available from police on Friday evening.
Harrison said she got the call from her daughter yesterday morning and she “jumped up and left the house” to get to the scene of the accident. She described how “devastating and shocking” it was to see James after the accident and knowing the person who hit him had “left him laying there like that.”
The family along with friends and other community members were taking part in a celebration of life for James in Lawndale Friday evening. Harrison said a balloon release was planned.
She said all the family wants is for the driver to “turn themselves in.”
“This is something that could’ve been avoided, something that shouldn’t have happened,” Harrison said.
