Second man held in 7-year-old girl’s killing in Austin
BY JOSH MCGHEE AND ALLISON HORTON Staff Reporters July 6, 2012 5:22AM
Memorial Service for 7- year old Heaven Sutton at St. Mark International Christian Church, Friday, July 6, 2012. | John H. White~Sun-Times
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Updated: August 8, 2012 6:06AM
Hours before Heaven Sutton was laid to rest Friday dressed as a princess in a pink and white casket, police arrested a second person in the 7-year-old girl’s fatal shooting.
No charges had been filed as of Friday night. But authorities said the suspect being questioned is a gang member like alleged gunman Jerrell Dorsey, 26, who is being held without bond for last week’s murder. As mourners packed St. Mark International Christian Church Friday afternoon, the Rev. Andre Thurmon passed on “a message from heaven through Heaven.” “She’s speaking to the community she lived in. It’s time to stop killing one another,” Thurmon said at the West Side church, 832 N. Leclaire. Some in the standing-room-only crowd paid tribute to the Josephine Locke Elementary School student by wearing t-shirts that read “It was Heaven on Earth” and “Heaven on Earth movement.” Heaven was “an
“It’s time for a wake up call for this community. People think they’re going to be a snitch if they say what’s going on,” Torry said of the purported gang crossfire that claimed Heaven’s life. Police blamed the fatal gunfire on a feud between warring gangs — the 4 Corner Hustlers and the Maniac Insane Vice Lords. Heaven had just finished selling candy with her mother in front of their Austin home when two men approached and began firing, police said. A stray bullet hit the child in the back. A 19-year-old man was also wounded in the gunfire in the 1700 block of North Luna Avenue. During Heaven’s funeral service Friday, Thurmon told the grieving adults to “stand on the corner with your child and say, ‘I’m not going home until you’re going home.’” Thurmon additionally urged those in the pews who own weapons to dispose them. The Rev. Jesse Jackson also told Heaven’s family and friends that the community must “declare a war a war” and not “adjust to babies dying.”
“You are really wiping your own culture from existing. You are killing yourselves. Why are you doing this? What are you getting out of this? That’s what I don’t understand.”
