Personal Reflection: “It was sad to see the pain in his eyes”
June 1st, 2020. At the Intersection of Cermack Rd and Cicero. (Photo by Jesus M. Montero)
An account from Anonymous
On Monday June 1, I decided to walk over to Cicero Avenue & Cermak Road to see what was happening because I had heard that Cicero residents were lined up on 49th Avenue and Cermak Road because people were trying to loot in Cicero. As I stood and watched I began talking to some Spanish-speaking men who were there observing as well and I asked them what they thought about this.
One man said, “Eso es bueno, que están defendiendo la comunidad de gente que quiere aprovechar de la situación.” Another man said, “Que bueno ya robaron El Patron y ahora quieren robar la Chiquita y todos los negocios pequeños.” I just listened.
Later on I saw cars with Black people drive by that started getting bricked but I also saw cars with Black people drive by who didn’t get bricked or harmed. The most fucked up thing that I witnessed was on the corner of Cicero Avenue & Cermak Road right in front of the Checks Cashed. Two Black men in a jeep were surrounded by a mob of Latino men, who were gangbanging at this point and not necessarily trying to defend the community from looters. They started bricking the car windows. Immediately the driver of the car got out and started fighting against one of them but was then jumped by a group of like four.
While this was happening the young Black man on the passenger side had gotten out of the car and hid behind me and a group of men who were observing what was happening. One of the Latinos that was part of the altercation asked, “Who else was in this car?!” and quickly the men that were present defended the Black youth by telling him that the young man had ran off down Cicero Avenue.
I then turned around, made eye contact with the young Black man and all you saw was fear in his eyes—it was sad. The Latino mob then drove the car and parked it behind Checks Cashed and just started bricking it, hitting it with bats and completely totaling the car.
I stood next to the young man, who was a 19-year-old teen from the West side and asked him if he needed anything and the only thing he kept saying was, “I just want to go home. Please, I just want to go home. Can you take me home? Please.”
He kept biting his nails and was shaking. He said that the man who got jumped was his cousin and that all they were doing was going home. He said that they were in Cicero driving on Central to drop off a friend of theirs when some Latino men checked them to see if they were banging but they said “no.”
Then when they were driving down Cermak Road that’s when they got checked again and that’s when the violence started. Thankfully someone dropped the young teen and two children home but it was sad to see the pain in his eyes, to hear the hurt in his voice and the shock of what he had just experienced be visible in his body.
