October 2, 2018
Two recent, and apparently related, murders have my Chicago neighborhood of Rogers Park in mourning and on edge. At around 10:30 am on Sunday, an older resident named Douglass Watts was shot at point blank range while walking his dogs near his apartment building. On Monday evening, a young man, Eliyahu Moscowitz, was also shot at point blank range, in the nearby lakefront park where he was a well known and well liked participant in a local Pokemon Go group. Police have determined that the same gun was used in the killings of both men.
Gathering on Tuesday evening in the park near the spot of Eliyahu’s murder, his friends, his Pokemon Go teammates, and Rogers Park community members (such as myself) lit candles and came together to remember the victims, and express their grief, shock and anger over these two brutal acts of violence.
As of this writing on Wednesday morning, the Chicago police have released a photo of a suspect, taken by a surveillance camera near Douglass Watts’ residence on Sherwin Avenue. Unfortunately the face of the suspect cannot be discerned in the image.