Standoff at VA hospital ends as gunman surrenders

BY KARA SPAK AND ROSEMARY SOBOL Staff Reporters

A 53-year-old man who held police at bay in an eight hour standoff Wednesday at the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center was being questioned in the fatal shooting of his elderly parents.

“My brother is not a monster,” said Mansa Kenyatta, 55, the older brother of the man in police custody. “He was a 50-year-old mama’s boy. We’re just trying to figure it out.”

Kenyatta is the eldest of three children of Joe and Johnnie Washington, age 79 and 77 respectively, of the 2200 block of South Kildare.

Both suffered fatal gunshot wounds, the medical examiner’s office said.

On Tuesday afternoon, Kenyatta’s sister Yvonne Howard made multiple calls to her parent’s home, part of a daily routine to check on their well-being, he said. No one answered.

Concerned that their mother had fallen out of the wheelchair she used because of severe arthritis, Howard went to the family home at about 6 p.m. Tuesday and found their parents’ bodies. Family members said there were weapons — a handgun and shotgun — missing from the home, police said.

The man now in custody — who lived at home with his parents — apparently resurfaced around 1:20 a.m. Wednesday. Law enforcement sources said he walked into the emergency room of the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center, 820 S. Damen Ave., and fired a shot into the ceiling before pointing the gun at his head.

“I am not going to shoot,” the man told Bobby Freeman, an emergency room admissions clerk. “I just want some help.”

Freeman said the man allegedly told a medical technician he had just killed his parents.

The gunshot triggered a standoff between the man and police, who negotiated with him through the door of the exam room where he barricaded himself, said Deputy Chief Wayne Gulliford.

About 9 a.m. Wednesday, the man peacefully surrendered to police. He was being questioned Wednesday night.

Back at his parents’ home, neighbors were puzzled over the sudden loss of Joe Washington, a retired Chicago garbageman, and Johnnie Washington, a retired teacher’s aide. “Ever seen the Cosby Show?” said neighbor Steven Thompson, 48. “They were parents like that.”

But despite a loving home, his brother struggled as an adult, Kenyatta said. He said his younger brother, a former Marine, battled a decades-long addiction to “mint leaf,” or PCP-laced marijuana. He was sober the past six years, Kenyatta said.

Contributing: Mike Lansu, Stefano Esposito