The most dangerous block in Chicago isn’t in Englewood or on the West Side. It’s a stretch of South King Drive where a young Michelle Obama once lived.They call it “O Block.”
On maps, it’s the 6400 block of South Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. But it’s just O Block to people there and in frequent references to the street in the blood-drenched lyrics of Chief Keef and other Chicago rappers.
The sprawling Parkway Gardens low-income apartment complex sits on one side of the street. A string of businesses including an Auto Zone, a food mart and the Chicago Crusader newspaper lines the other.
Young men in hoodies and low-riding jeans gather in the courtyards here, staring down strangers. Mothers hurry past, holding tight to little hands as they shuttle between the neighborhood school and the safety of their apartments. Security cameras posted nearly everywhere here see it all.
Gang members gave O Block the name. The O was for 20-year-old Odee Perry, a gang member gunned down just around the corner on a summer’s night in 2011. His killer? A 17-year-old female gang assassin named Gakirah Barnes, police sources say. Barnes later was shot to death not far from here.
Perry was one of 19 people shot on O Block between June 2011 and June 2014. That makes it the most dangerous block in Chicago in terms of shootings in that three-year period, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis has found.
Two of the victims were killed.
None of the shootings has resulted in criminal charges.
And none of the weapons has been recovered.
On maps, it’s the 6400 block of South Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. But it’s just O Block to people there and in frequent references to the street in the blood-drenched lyrics of Chief Keef and other Chicago rappers.
The sprawling Parkway Gardens low-income apartment complex sits on one side of the street. A string of businesses including an Auto Zone, a food mart and the Chicago Crusader newspaper lines the other.
Young men in hoodies and low-riding jeans gather in the courtyards here, staring down strangers. Mothers hurry past, holding tight to little hands as they shuttle between the neighborhood school and the safety of their apartments. Security cameras posted nearly everywhere here see it all.
Gang members gave O Block the name. The O was for 20-year-old Odee Perry, a gang member gunned down just around the corner on a summer’s night in 2011. His killer? A 17-year-old female gang assassin named Gakirah Barnes, police sources say. Barnes later was shot to death not far from here.
Perry was one of 19 people shot on O Block between June 2011 and June 2014. That makes it the most dangerous block in Chicago in terms of shootings in that three-year period, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis has found.
Two of the victims were killed.
None of the shootings has resulted in criminal charges.
And none of the weapons has been recovered.
