Number 289 hits close to home

In 2007 I hired Chris Johnson as a parts order picker at my last company as logistics manager before retiring in June, 2013. Chris was a 22 year old African American from Englewood, one of Chicago's high crime areas, where the opportunity to 'make it' is not high. 

He didn't have much of a resume other than having graduated high school with honors and some technical education afterwards which he apparently could not afford to continue. He also had a gentle poise and sincerity that helped persuade me to hire him for an entry level job in logistics.

 My intuition about Chris was rewarded as he quickly became a valuable employee who was liked by everyone. Chris approached me about taking logistics classes at Daley College to further his career. Even though our company did not have a tuition reimbursement policy, our company president took an interest in Chris and approved a special tuition reimbursement on his behalf. 

Chris worked for me for nearly six years, up to my retirement in June, 2013. I confess to worrying about Chris's safety from crime throughout that tenure as he continued to live in Englewood. I knew Englewood first hand having worked there from 1968 to 1972 as first a social caseworker, then a teacher at Bass Elementary School at 65th and May, just a few blocks from where Chris lived some years later.

I stayed in touch with Chris for a few months after I retired, and had plans to go to lunch with him but never did. Earlier this year I was told he was no longer employed at the company. No information provided as to why or what his future plans were. 

Today, a former work colleague at company informed me that Chris Johnson, 32, was shot to death on June 13, Chicago 2017 murder victim number 289. The news report said he was shot multiple times by person or persons unknown while sitting in a car at 81st and Kedzie, just a few miles from his home. 

Why he was there and what provoked the shooting was not provided. Also not provided was that Chris Johnson was so much more than a 32 year old male gunned down in the shooting gallery our society enables with easy access to guns and unrelenting poverty and despair in America's inner cities. I had the privilege of meeting and working with a lot of fine people during my 46 years in teaching and logistics; Chris Johnson among them.