For the last six days, Ana Mosqueda and other members of the Little Village Community Council have been standing by the fence of Farragut Career Academy near the alleyway where 13-year-old Adam Toledo was killed by Chicago police last week.
They have been screaming his name to demand justice for Toledo’s family and have a sign with a picture of the boy that reads, “CPD Stop Killing Our Children.”
On Monday, Mosqueda, the mother of a 3-year-old who shares the same name as the victim, arrived before the start of a community vigil, organized by other groups, including Enlace Chicago and New Life Centers of Chicagoland.
“My son’s name is Adam. My son and I walk these streets all the time, and we shouldn’t have to be worried about the police that are supposed to be protecting us,” Mosqueda said as other neighbors and supporters began to arrive.
As Toledo’s life was celebrated, community leaders demanded an end to the criminalization of Black and brown youth by the Chicago Police Department.
“This is not an isolated incident,” said Jacqueline Herrera, of Enlace, an organization working to foster the growth and ensure the safety of the Latino-majority neighborhood.
“Too many Black and brown lives taken by the Chicago police,” she said, and asked the community to stop blaming each other for the death of the 13-year-old and instead demand accountability from the city and Police Department.
Though Toledo’s mother, Elizabeth Toledo was not present, the Rev. Matt DeMateo of New Life Community Church, delivered a message to the crowd from the grieving mother, saying she was grateful for the support and pleading for peace in the neighborhood.
At the vigil, leaders did not address the news conference that took place earlier Monday, during which Mayor Lori Lightfoot called for the immediate creation of a new police foot-pursuit policy and demanded an investigation into the gun recovered at the scene where the 13-year-old was killed.
Toledo was described as loving and caring. “He was goofy and always cracking jokes,” Herrera read from a message his mother sent.
He loved animals and riding his bike. He also liked Taco Bell, McDonald’s, enchiladas and arroz con leche, she continued as someone passed white balloons to those who attended.
Kristian Armendáriz, 23, lives only a few blocks away from where Toledo was shot to death.
Monday evening, he rushed to the vigil right after work holding a sign with Toledo’s name.
“That could have been me, my friends or any of my cousins,” he said. Armendáriz said he began to participate in protests and actions to demand accountability from the Police Department after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis last summer.
Just last week he joined the Little Village Community Council.
“I realized that it doesn’t matter where we are, if you’re Black or Latino, cops will immediately assume you’re doing something wrong,” he said.
For Mosqueda, justice goes beyond the release of the body camera footage of the shooting in which Toledo was killed. She wants to make sure that the police officer who killed Toledo is fired.
But she also wants the Police Department to be reformed and “ensure that they have officers who are properly trained to respond to these situations and defuse the confrontation properly and safely.”
larodriguez@chicagotribune.com
