Charlie McDonald

Charlie McDonald, 17, of the 9600 block of South Hoxie Avenue, Chicago, turned himself in to police Thursday and was charged with first-degree murder, prosecutors said.
On Sunday, he appeared in Cook County Bond Court, where he was ordered held without bail.
Tommy Brewer, McDonald's lawyer and a Democratic candidate for Cook County state's attorney, said no one knew where McDonald had been since Nov. 19, but that he called his mother last week, wanting to turn himself in.
"He decided it would be better just to face the charges," Brewer said.
Isaac Pink and a group of five people were walking in the 10000 block of South Oglesby Avenue about 4:30 p.m. when McDonald approached them, prosecutors said. He pointed a gun at one man in the group and demanded money, but the man swatted the gun away, said Assistant State's Atty. Maria Augustus.
McDonald aimed the gun at Pink, again demanded money and then hit him in the face with the gun, she said. Pink punched McDonald, who fired the gun once at him, she said. The group scattered, and McDonald fired again, Augustus said.
The witnesses told police on the scene that "Dirty Charlie"—McDonald's street name—was the gunman, Augustus said.
Joyce Pink said McDonald's arrest offers some comfort. Her son, who was studying art at Truman College, was a talented student whose ceramics adorn her house, she said.
He graduated from Global Visions Academy on the South Side, where he was known for his outstanding portraits, his teachers said.
She said she tried hard to shelter her son from the crime on the streets around her house, especially since his father died of lung cancer in 2003.
On Nov. 19, she had just been to the grocery, and she and her son had put up the family's Christmas tree. They were excited for the upcoming holidays, she said. When friends stopped by to ask him for a haircut, she reluctantly watched him go, she said.
"I didn't want him around none of the people around here," she said. "They were jealous that he was in college, that he was doing well.
"He was our future. I cry for my son every day."

Posted in: Chicago