When he was shot to death by masked gunmen in a restaurant parking lot in the south suburbs last year, James Yates Jr., the son of a onetime Chicago gang leader, became the Cook County medical examiner's office's case No. ME2023-03844.
He was the sixth of 11 homicide victims last year in Dolton, population 20,000.
More than a year later, his parents say they want the Dolton Police Department to treat their 29-year-old son as something more than just another number. Since a face-to-face meeting with police a few months after the killing, they say they haven't heard anything from the department — no calls, emails, texts or meetings.
“Do your job — that’s what I would say to them,” says Yates’ mother, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation from the killers.
Yates’ father, also named James Yates, is a former "governor" of Chicago's Gangster Disciples street gang. He did time in prison in a conspiracy case involving Gangster Disciples co-founder Larry Hoover, who authorities say ran the gang from prison.
James Yates Sr., who was released from prison in 2020 after serving a 20-year sentence, says he now runs a construction company and is active in charitable activities. He lives in Kankakee, where he says he's the imam of a mosque.
Yates Sr. says the police aren’t giving his son’s killing enough attention because “they think he’s just another Black gang-banger and not worth their time.
“It’s all hands on deck — ‘we’re gonna get the perp’ — if it’s a cop who’s killed," Yates Sr. says. "If it’s a Black kid, finding the perpetrator is not important. I think it’s tragic, but it’s not only in Dolton. So many individuals I know have lost sons, children, and those cases are open.”
Dolton police officials didn’t respond to messages seeking comment.
“It’s troublesome when you can’t contact anybody,” says Andrew Holmes, a Dolton village trustee whose daughter was killed in Indianapolis in 2015. “It does hurt.”
Holmes says he plans to try to arrange a meeting between the Yateses and Dolton police officials.
According to records kept by the medical examiner’s office, 11 people were homicide victims in Dolton last year, including 10 shot to death and one who was bludgeoned. Police have successfully sought murder charges in four of those cases, according to the Cook County state’s attorney’s office.
Another person listed as a homicide victim was shot to death by a Dolton police officer during a standoff.
For more than a year, Dolton has been making news for its political chaos. Former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot was hired to investigate Dolton Mayor Tiffany Henyard’s handling of the village’s finances and released a report last month saying Dolton is $3.5 million in the red. Lewis Lacy, the acting police chief, was indicted last month by a federal grand jury on charges of bankruptcy fraud.
Yates Sr. says he worries that the disarray in Dolton might be stalling his son’s case. He says he recently tried contacting the Illinois attorney general’s office for help in getting justice for his son, but his messages went unanswered. A spokesman for the office didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Yates Sr. and his son’s mother say they've pieced together some facts about their son's killing based on their visit last year with Dolton detectives and a surveillance video from a beauty salon near the shooting scene in the 1200 block of Sibley Boulevard.
Yates Jr. was killed June 25, 2023, on a Sunday. That morning, his mother texted him and his three siblings: “Good morning children, we’re going to church today.”
Yates was the only sibling who responded, asking, “What time?”
But his mother didn’t see his text. So she went to church by herself. Later, she texted her kids that they’d all go to church the next week.
It was the last time she communicated with her son.
Here's what the parents say they've learned about the night of his death:
Around 6:25 p.m., he drove to Wilma’s Famous BBQ in his Chrysler 300 to pick up an order of chicken. He carried his French bulldog, named Midnight, into the restaurant, but a security guard told him pets aren’t allowed.
So he went back outside and put Midnight in his car.
Then, when he cracked the door to check on the dog, a dark-colored Chrysler 300 accelerated into the lot, and three masked men jumped out, hands covered with purple gloves, guns in the ready position.
They unloaded on Yates Jr. and sped away.
His mother says she was told by the police that the guns were equipped with switches, tiny attachments that can turn handguns into automatic weapons.
She says the police also told her the car used in the shooting later was found torched.
“I have so many questions," she says. "I want to know why. I want to know who. Why did they have to do that to him? He had such a good soul. I mean, he was with his little dog."
Yates Jr. had an arrest record, including an arrest for gun possession, but was never locked up for a violent crime, records show.
Yates Sr. says that when he went to prison in 1995, his son was a toddler. In letters, calls and occasional visits, he encouraged his son to become an entrepreneur, and that he did, saving money to buy and sell bottled water and candied apples as a child. He later bought and sold cars, according to his father.
Yates Sr. says he doesn't know why his son was killed. The younger Yates had a temper and wasn't shy about using his fists, his father says, "but he wasn't a shooter."
Although his son was a heavy marijuana smoker, Yates Sr. says he was determined to quit the habit in the months before he died.
"He admitted that his bad attitude was a result of his weed smoking," Yates Sr. says. "He started jogging and lost weight. He was doing well."
Yates Jr. had a 6-year-old daughter and doted on her, according to his parents, who also say he took care of his ailing grandfather, shuttling him to the barber and doctor appointments.
"He helped people," his mother says.
She says it's hard to square the fond memories of her son with the horror she witnessed on the surveillance video of the shooting.
“Grief is a thief," she says. "It steals all your joy. I am learning to have happy moments. But the lack of justice for my son makes it hard.”
