Hundreds attend 5-year-old shooting victim’s funeral
By Dave Gathman dgathman@stmedianetwork.com October 12, 2011 9:04PM
Eric Galarza hugs family and friends Wednesday following a funeral for his son Eric Galarza Jr., on Wednesday at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Elgin. | Michael Smart~Sun-Times Media
Updated: November 16, 2011 2:08PM
ELGIN — The stark gleaming whiteness of the casket and its shockingly small size were painful reminders that the life of an innocent had been snuffed out, the unintended victim of a gang shooting.
Some 300 people turned out Wednesday morning for the funeral of 5-year-old Eric Galarza Jr., who was fatally wounded Friday night while sitting next to his mother in a car in the driveway of his home in the usually peaceful, middle-class Blackhawk Manor subdivision.
As the car backed out on its way to a family dinner at a grandparent’s home, five or six gunshots rang out from the darkness.
One bullet passed through the car’s trunk and back seat, and into little Eric’s body. He died at Elgin’s Sherman Hospital about two hours later.
As they waited Wednesday in the parking lot behind the Wait Ross Allanson funeral chapel, some of the mourners wore white T-shirts with the kindergartner’s chubby-faced, long-haired portrait on their backs, along with the words “In Loving Memory of Eric.”
The shirts’ front noted the start and end of his short life: “RIP 7-17-06 10-7-11.”
As the 5-foot-long casket was wheeled out of the chapel’s back door and across the street into St. Joseph Catholic Church, hundreds followed in tears. They then took their places in pews to hear the Rev. Adalberto Sanchez read a eulogy in Spanish.
Who’s in danger
A few blocks to the northwest, in city hall, Mayor David Kaptain said Elginites need to remember that the shooting was targeted at a specific person who had longtime gang ties, and that innocent people usually have little to fear from gang violence.
And he added a third reminder: If you do have a gang member living with you, you’re putting your entire family in danger.
“I refer to this as an assassination attempt that went wrong,” aimed at the child’s father who was riding in the same car Friday as little Eric and four other women and children, Kaptain said. “This was an attempt to kill an individual. It was not gang members driving through a neighborhood, shooting at random cars and homes.”
In fact, Kaptain said, members of the police gang unit believe that of 1,000 or so Elginites who belong to street gangs, only about 50 are violent and callous enough to commit what happened Friday.
Although the army of detectives working on the case have not stated so publicly, it is widely assumed that the gunman was aiming for Eric Galarza Sr., a 30-year-old with a lengthy arrest record.
Ironically, Kaptain said, at the city council meeting that was to begin seven hours after the funeral, he planned to proclaim Oct. 21-23 as “Red Ribbon Week” in Elgin, a time to celebrate the work of the Elgin Police Department’s gang and drug units, and to encourage anti-drug and anti-gang activities throughout the city. The proclamation had been planned before Friday’s shooting.
“This should remind people that if they live with a gang member, they’re endangering the whole family,” the mayor said.
He said it’s incredible how some people are willing to live.
“A few years ago, somebody shot at a home on the east side, and police discovered the people had installed a steel armor plate behind their bed to deflect any bullets that came through the wall. When I was a kid, if my father had found out I was in a gang, he would have said, ‘Just get out!’ ”
Killing the innocent
News reports seem to come almost every week of another Chicago grade-schooler, mother or other innocent person hit by stray gunfire by a gang-banger.
But innocent bystanders such as little Eric have been cut down occasionally in Elgin gang shootings, too.
Almost exactly 10 years ago, a sixth-grader named Jasmine Keyes was on her way home from an evening fun fair at Garfield Elementary School on Elgin’s southeast side, in a neighborhood then notorious for gang activity. Three shots could be heard, perhaps from a car, maybe from some yard blocks away, aimed at no one knows quite what. By bad luck, the last bullet slammed into the 11-year-old girl’s jaw and throat.
When the neighborhood’s resident police officer arrived less than a minute later, Jasmine had no pulse. Two officers and a nurse passing by administered CPR and helped keep the girl alive. But she was left paralyzed in a wheelchair, and the shooter was never found.
Another fatal innocent-victim gang shooting took place in April 1992. A group of gang members attacked a house adjacent to Elgin Academy where rival gang members lived. They smashed windows with baseball bats. An 18-year-old named Esteban Torres emerged from the house, carrying a gun. As the vandals ran away, Torres fired in their direction. But the bullet missed the attackers, entered one of the academy buildings and killed Earle Harris, a maintenance man working there. Torres later was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
As for Friday’s slaying of Eric Galarza Jr., Kaptain said, “Somebody out there knows who did this. We need to catch this person.”
Anyone with information is encouraged to call the Elgin Police Department’s anonymous tip line at 847-695-4195 or go to www.cityofelgin.org/police and follow the link to leave an anonymous text.
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