On August 26, Wade’s first cousin, Nykea Aldridge, was fatally shot while walking her infant child in Chicago’s Parkway Gardens. Police say the mother of four was not the intended target of the shooting, and the baby in the stroller was not struck by the gunfire.
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“I grew up in one of the toughest areas when it comes to murders in Chicago in the 90s”.
Wade signed with the Bulls this offseason and said his decision to come home was bigger than basketball.
“And hopefully all our athletes were listening”. It’s not just on athletes. But he said we can all contribute. “It’s not just because you make this kind of money and (you’re) on TV you have to do this”. “We have to do a better job of being leaders. On the other hand, it’s a national story”, he continued.
For Wade, he doesn’t just want justice for his cousin, but for the country to have a heightened awareness of what’s going on in his city. I want us to be able to do more together. “And we’re not doing that”. Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said in the days after Aldridge’s shooting that he’s grown frustrated with the system’s inability to stop repeat offenders. Wade joined with fellow NBA stars LeBron James, Chris Paul and Carmelo Anthony to open the telecast by declaring the crises of gun violence and police profiling to be “bigger than basketball”.
STEPHANOPOULOS: This came right in the middle of a presidential campaign as you know and Donald Trump I know expressed his condolences to your family.
“We reject the bigotry of Hillary Clinton”, he said at a Wisconsin rally on August 16, “which panders to and talks down to communities of color and sees them only as votes – that’s all they care about – not as individual human beings worthy of a better future”. And you know, not all the police, obviously. But my boys hear everything that’s going on in the world, all the harassment, all the murders that’s going on and they pose the question back to me.
Wade said: “My goal for being back in the city is bigger than basketball”.
WADE: They are. They are fighting a war.
Chicago has been in the throes of a major uptick in gun violence this year, largely centered in a few South and West Side neighborhoods, after years of seeing declines.
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He criticized Donald Trump’s politically-charge Tweet about her death and said he wishes news coverage of Aldridge’s death had been more respectful of her role as a mother of four rather than focusing on her connection to the basketball star.
