Mom Gets Shot, Loses 3rd Child to Chicago Violence

A young Chicago drug dealer shielded his mother from gunfire yesterday and died in the process—leaving her with only one child who hasn't died from violence. Three out of four have now lost their lives, her sister tells the Chicago Sun-Times. In the latest killing, Alicia Jones' son, 21-year-old James Jones, was on their front porch in South Chicago when someone walked up and spoke to him, says Alicia's sister, Dietra Luckett. James got up to go inside just as Alicia was coming out, and the gunfire erupted: "My sister just so happened to be coming out the front door," says Luckett. "He took his body and put it on top of her body. He covered her body." James, the intended target, had served prison time and was out on parole; police say gangs are involved but no arrests have been made.

Alicia was wounded and had surgery at Advocate Christ Medical Center, where she's now asking for her son: "Where's James?" she says, according to Luckett. But the family doesn't want to tell her until she has recovered. Alicia already lost a daughter, Antoinette Means, a high-school valedictorian who died at the age of 19 during a robbery in 2006 at a KFC where she was working, the Chicago Tribune reports. Antoinette's half-brother, 4-year-old Curtis Jones Jr., died when gang members tossed a molotov cocktail into their previous residence in 1994. Now, firefighters have hosed down the scene of the latest killing. "All you smell is blood," says a woman the Tribune describes as "anguished." And someone left a note for James that reads, "I love you." (More shooting stories.)