The murder of Dixon Elementary School teacher Erika Prince may have been a case of mistaken identity, Chicago police spokeswoman Monique Bond said. Prince was sitting in her cranberry Dodge Charger in the 8700 block of South Euclid when she was shot in th
She had double parked her car so her 16-year-old niece and two children, ages nine and five, could retrieve a few personal items for a sleepover at her home. Investigators are looking at whether the shooter may have been seeking someone in a vehicle similar to Prince’s. In the meanwhile, students and teachers at Dixon are “very very distraught,” principal Sharon Dale said “When we left the hospital Sunday she was still alive.
And then I called the dad Monday morning and found that they had pronounced her dead shortly after we left the hospital,” said Dale, who visited Prince with other Dixon staff. “It threw me for a loop. I met with my teachers as early as I could, to give them a chance to grieve and share their thoughts.” Prince, a 5-year special education teacher, was popular at Dixon.
She was a 1989 alumnae of the school, and her 9-year-old daughter attended there. She taught fifth to seventh grade special education and, Dale said, is a primary reason the school achieved annual yearly progress in that area under the No Child Left Behind Act. Prince also taught students hip hop dance after school, and sponsored the Beta honors club. “She wasn’t a teacher who clocked out at 3:15. Some days she would pick up her preschooler and bring the preschooler back (to Dixon) until she finished her work,” Dale said.
Many students cried openly, and some had to be sent back home when they heard of Prince’s death. One of her mentees refused to participate in his eighth grade graduation because he said it would not be the same without Prince there. Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan, who visited the school Monday, tried to convince him otherwise.
“He told (me and Duncan) he connected with her the minute she came to the school, and she was actually taking him to church with her. He was a part of her hip hop group, as well as part of her special ed class last year%uFFFD He said he just wanted to (be handed) his diploma in the school office,” Dale said. Dale is “angry” that violence has touched her school, and was in for a twisted surprise when she visited Prince at the hospital.
“I passed another room and saw one of my former students who had been shot nine times in the back. That made me very angry. Erika was in room 7, and he was in the intensive care room 5,” Dale said. The 19-year-old man, whose father is a fire department captain and mother is a police officer, will live, Dale said.
She said that gang retaliation is common in Chatham, where Dixon is located. The school is just a couple miles from where Prince was shot.
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