The evening of the Fourth of July 2015 should have been a celebratory one, prosecutors said, replete with food, drinks and fireworks.
Instead, they alleged, two men intent on continuing a months-long feud sent volleys of bullets down a street at a rival. They missed him, prosecutors said, but injured a woman and killed 7-year-old Amari Brown.
“This has to stop today, here with you,” Assistant State’s Attorney Emily Stevens told the jury during closing arguments Thursday. Testimony in the case began last week.
The men are standing trial nearly nine years after the boy’s slaying, which happened during a violent holiday weekend and spurred national news attention and calls for change, especially when followed, just months later, by the targeted killing of 9-year-old Tyshawn Lee.
Jamal Joiner, 29, and Rasheed Martin, 28, are charged with murder and other felonies for allegedly killing Amari, injuring another woman and trying to kill their true target just before midnight in the 1100 block of North Harding Avenue in the Humboldt Park neighborhood. Their defense attorneys have pointed the finger at the other defendant, and two juries are weighing the case: one for Joiner and one for Martin.
Joiner’s attorneys argued that he wasn’t present, and was shot weeks earlier, meaning he wouldn’t have physically been able to run away like the shooters did. His jury began deliberating around 2:15 p.m.
Joiner had testified in his own defense.
“He couldn’t have run as fast … as those guys were running,” his public defender Mark Douglass said. “It was impossible for him to do that with those injuries.”
Martin’s jury was still listening to closing arguments late Thursday.
Cook County prosecutors said during opening statements last week that the shooting was the result of a feud that had been heating up for several months until it came to a head just before midnight in the 1100 block of North Harding Avenue in the Humboldt Park neighborhood.
They alleged that Joiner and Martin were aiming for someone else whom they had gotten in previous confrontations with but instead hit Amari and the woman.
Amari’s mother and other family members have attended the trial at the Leighton Criminal Court Building. His mother, Amber Hailey, tearfully testified last week about the last time she talked to her son.
Amari was with his father that night, out for the fireworks.
Hailey testified that she talked to Amari on the phone around 9 p.m. that night, and he told her they were going to the park for fireworks.
“It was the last time I spoke to him,” she said.
