“That hurt me, you know, to be the name that they talked about instead of talking about a mother of four and getting to know her and getting to know, you know, how awesome, how great she was as an individual”, Wade said.
Advertisement
On Friday, Wade gave his first interview since the passing of his cousin, where he said Trump’s tweet left him feeling “kind of conflicted”.
Dwyane Wade, the National Basketball Association star whose cousin was killed in Chicago last wek, said Donald TrumpDonald TrumpAre Senate Republicans facing an election wipeout?
Wade also had criticism for the media for not using Aldridge’s name in news reports.
Nykea Aldridge was fatally shot the afternoon of August 26, caught in the crossfire of an altercation that had nothing to do with her.
While Wade said doesn’t have all the answers on how to solve Chicago’s issues, he is willing to do what he can to help spark change. August was the deadliest month in nearly two decades in Chicago with 90 people, an average of three a day, dying in gun violence. And while basketball is his job, he said, he had a larger goal of embedding himself in the city and forcing uncomfortable conversations to take place about how Chicago is being torn apart by violence.
“My goal for being back in the city is bigger than basketball”, Wade said. It’s what I do for a living. I want us to be able to do more together and the only way we can do more together is for people to know what’s going on.
Nykea Aldridge was killed in the middle of the day, returning from registering her kids for school when a she was shot in the head. Police say she was not the intended target.
Two brothers have been charged with her killing. As of Thursday, there had been more than 2,300 shootings in the city, 471 resulting in fatalities.
Superintendent Eddie Johnson said the suspects are an example of the city’s problem with repeat offenders, which he has spoken about frequently in recent months.
Aldridge was one of 90 people murdered in August alone in Chicago, a city that has been ravaged by gun violence.
“Instead of talking about a mother of four and getting to know her and getting to know how unbelievable, how great she was as an individual, a lot of them said ‘this is Dwyane Wade’s cousin, ‘” he said. There’s other cities that have way tougher gun laws.
Advertisement
The point: Far from having “weak” gun laws, Chicago has been an experiment in extreme gun control for decades.
