Ciara Chatman walked out of her Auburn Gresham home Monday night and was met by the glare of candlelight.
The candles arranged on the sidewalk spelled out “DALILAH,” the name of her daughter. She stared at the flickering flames, then crumpled into the arms of a nephew who stood at her side.
“The one time I let my baby outside, she didn’t come back,” Chatman, 35, said as she sat in the middle of the candles, rocking back and forth, gazing at posters of her daughter.
It had been less than a day since Chatman’s daughter, 12-year-old Dalilah Batey, had been fatally shot in a condemned building in Calumet Heights on the far South Side. She was found shot in a home in the 9200 block of South Harper Avenue about 8:30 p.m. Sunday, police said. She would have celebrated her 13th birthday in two weeks.
An autopsy by the Cook County medical examiner’s office ruled her death a homicide. On Tuesday morning, Chicago police said a 14-year-old boy was charged with involuntary manslaughter in Dalilah’s death.
Outside of Chatman’s home Monday night, a steady stream of neighbors, friends and relatives arrived holding blue and silver balloons. Eventually more than 100 people spilled out into the street, standing in near-silence.
Dalilah’s aunt Jasmine Batey was still in shock.
“It’s just unbelievable,” she said. “How does a 12-year-old get shot in the face?”
Dalilah had visited her father and Batey, 33, in Kankakee just last week, she said.
Batey’s eight-year-old son and Dalilah spent quite a bit of time together on those visits, she said, and particularly enjoyed playing Roblox and other games.
Dalilah was a “firecracker,” Batey continued — “even when she used to get in trouble with us… she’d come into a room smiling and laughing.”
Dalilah also loved music and dancing, and would teach Batey’s son her moves.
“She showed him how to pop,” she said. “He would start doing good dance and I (was) like, ‘where are you getting this from?’”
At Monday’s memorial, one woman whose daughters had danced with her pulled out a cell phone video of Dalilah wearing a red uniform jersey, shorts and white sneakers grooving in a trio of girls at a street performance. She’d danced in at least two different troupes, friends and family said.
Batey said her son had been sitting at their kitchen table Monday, trying to text Dalilah from his iPad.
“It made me start crying, because he was like, ‘she’s not answering,’” she said. “And I (was) like, ‘she’s gone, baby.’”
Dalilah was shot around 8:30 p.m. Sunday in a house located at 9214 South Harper Avenue that had been vacant since 2007, according to city building records.
Records show that the house’s owner has been cited 11 times since 2022 over failures to post the owner’s name and contact information, maintain the structure and keep a watch on the premises overnight, among other failures.
On Monday, the house was partially boarded up, with bullet holes visible in the front window.
Chicago Tribune’s Deanese Williams-Harris and Sam Charles contributed.
