Cook County Crime Stoppers, along with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, are offering a cash reward of up to $20,000 to anyone with information that could help lead to an arrest in a mass shooting that killed three people and injured several others in the Chicago Lawn neighborhood.
Volunteers hit the streets on Saturday morning, passing out flyers in hope of drumming up new leads in the triple homicide.
“You never know that one small piece of information that you have that may be the piece of information that puts this all together,” said George McDade, Cook County Crime Stoppers chairman.
McDade has been out in different neighborhoods every Saturday for nearly 30 years, trying to bring attention to unsolved cases.
"You can let a crime like this go unpunished and unsolved in the city of Chicago,” he said. “You can let somebody think that it’s okay to do murder and now it’s okay to do mass murder.”
Earlier this month, on Dec. 2, Chicago police said a gunman opened fire at a house party, killing three people and injuring five others near 59th Street and St. Louis Avenue. The home was boarded up on Saturday, a reminder of the violence that happened inside weeks earlier.
“It’s heartbreaking when you talk to the families,” McDade said. “It’s absolutely heartbreaking. They’re asking the same thing - why.”
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The work is very personal for one of the volunteers.
Paul Rutherford told NBC Chicago he lost his brother to gun violence and has now made it his mission to help bring justice to families of victims.
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“Cook County Crime Stoppers is the organization that solved my brother’s case so far that I’m forever indebted to the organization,” he shared.
Rutherford knows his work is crucial, helping to bridge the gap between police, the community and families.
“Normally people are like, 'You’re crazy for doing what you do,' but I do it because of my brother, and I don’t want other families to do that—to feel that hurt,” he said.
Cook County Crime Stoppers said on average it gets around 500 tips per month for homicides and drug-related cases. Since launching in 1985, the chairman said they’ve received more than 14,000 tips, solved more than 2,600 cases and arrested around 3,000 people.
“Please, please make that phone call, no matter how small of a piece of information you think it is,” McDade said. “Please, it’s very simple. We need that information."
If you have any information that could help with a case, you can submit a tip anonymously by phone or online. You can call the tip hotline at 1-800-535-STOP or visit P3Tips.com.
