Window with Black Lives Matter sign shot with BB gun — for 2nd time

For the second time in the last several months, a window in Mary Kathryn Cook’s apartment has been shot at — and she believes it was because of the sign attached to it.

A simple sign with the words “Black Lives Matter” has been taped to Cook’s apartment window for nearly four years, she said, but it wasn’t until the racial reckoning over the summer and Joe Biden’s election that it became a target.

“It’s not that our sign has changed or something new that we’ve done, but it seems more like the world around us has changed,” Cook said. “Obviously, we can look at the events of 2020 and the rising awareness of police brutality and just racism in the country, which has created an emboldenment for people to kind of retaliate.”

The middle school social worker believes the shootings are linked. In both incidents, she believes, a BB gun was used, and both times, a catalytic event had recently taken place.

The first time the window in her Little Italy home was damaged was in June.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

A statue of Christopher Columbus in nearby Arrigo Park, at 801 S. Loomis St., was repeatedly tagged with graffiti, along with another statue in Grant Park. The contention over the statue brought protesters and counter protesters to the park. (At one point a retired judge and resident of Little Italy threw a punch at a protester.) The bickering over the statue also unfolded online on message boards like Nextdoor.

Each of the statues would later be taken down by the city in the middle of the night and put into storage while officials determine how or whether to display them in the future.

At the height of the tension, she came home to find shards of glass inside her apartment and a small metal pellet on the floor.

The second shooting took place on Inauguration Day when President Joe Biden was sworn into office. This time she came home and found another small hole in the windowpane but didn’t find the actual pellet since it pierced the glass but not the sign.

“This time it happened on the night of the inauguration, and that’s why we think it is connected,” Cook said. “Maybe someone was angry and wanted a reason to lash out, and our window was an easy target.”

Cook says she’s called 311 to report the incidents, but has had the calls drop when she was connected to the local police district and hasn’t officially filed any reports. She said although she is upset by the vandalism, she hasn’t felt personally threatened by the incidents, so she hasn’t tried harder to get in touch with Chicago Police.

“A part of me feels, I guess, frustrated about this, but then the other part feels like I am doing something right,” Cook said. “But also like we want to make a point without bringing any danger to the families that live around us.”

Still, Cook remains vigilant and won’t take the sign down. Luckily, she said, her landlord has been supportive and hasn’t requested she remove it.

As for the response she received on Nextdoor? Overwhelmingly positive, she said.

“I was really surprised at knowing the amount of people who did support us,” Cook said.

Manny Ramos is a corps member in Report for America, a not-for-profit journalism program that aims to bolster Sun-Times coverage of issues affecting Chicago’s South and West sides.