CHICAGO — A 3-month-old baby, two girls 4 and 7, and a man died in an extra-alarm fire in an apartment building in the South Chicago neighborhood early Tuesday, and police said a man suspected of starting the fire after an argument is being held.
The baby died after being found next to a man who had jumped from the three-story building in the 8100 block of South Essex Avenue, officials said. The two girls were found in an apartment on the third floor, and the man was discovered in an apartment next door, officials said.
A police source said a man suspected of starting the fire has been taken into custody. He apparently had an argument with someone in the South Side building, the source said. That person was able to escape the fire, the source said.
A woman in a black T-shirt and pants stood near the building and yelled, “I’ll kill him, I’ll kill him, I’ll kill him.”
Later, another woman approached the scene and said she knew all three children who died, calling them her nieces.
“My nieces didn’t deserve this,” cried Chantel Staples, who said she is the sister of the baby’s father. “You will get what you deserve. … I’m so, so sorry this happened.”
She identified the children as Mellanie Watson, 3 months, Madison Watson, 4, and Shaniya Staples, 7.
Staples, dressed in green pants and a shirt with Elsa from Disney’s Frozen, stood in a group of relatives gathered near the building. Then she walked away, crying. “No!” she screamed as a relative hugged her. “This isn’t happening.”
She walked back toward the crime tape. “I’m going to see my nieces. I’m going to see my niece,” she said. “She’s gonna wake up, and we’re gonna go to Chuck E. Cheese’s.”
Shaniya’s father stood near the crime scene tape, staring into space with red eyes. His little girl’s name is tattooed on the back of his right wrist.
Abruptly, he stormed away from the building, repeating that he wanted to go to the police station. Several family members followed him down the street and stopped him in the middle of the block, holding down his hands and hugging him.
He slowly walked back toward the crime scene slowly, his shoulders upright and stiff. He stood there, seemingly in a daze.
Police said they received reports around 1:35 a.m. that someone had set fire to the courtyard building. Responding firefighters called a 2-11 alarm as the fire spread through the second and third floors. That was quickly followed by a 3-11 alarm with an emergency medical services plan 2, sending 10 ambulances and around 150 firefighters along with extra equipment to the fire.
Deputy Fire Commissioner Arriel Gray said firefighters encountered heavy flames on the second and third floors. Both stairwells were “compromised,” he said. Fire crews were unable to get inside the building because of the intensity of the fire and had to combat the blaze from the outside, Gray said.
The fire was struck out at 5:39 a.m., according to Gray.
Witnesses said they saw several people jump from the building, which has about 32 apartments. Fire officials said they used ladders to rescue several people.
Clay Turner said he saw a man lying on the ground and yelling for help, the 3-month-old next to him. Turner, who lives across the street, said he ran up and tried to help them.
“I’m just speechless,” Turner said, standing barefoot in a white T-shirt and black shorts.
The 3-month-old was taken in critical condition to Comer Children’s Hospital and was pronounced dead at 2:40 a.m., said Officer Ron Gaines, a Chicago police spokesman.
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A 48-year-old man was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, Ill., in critical condition, according to Gaines and Chicago fire officials. Two other people were taken to South Shore Hospital, one in fair condition and the other in a good condition, according to fire officials.
The bodies of a man and two children were found hours later as firefighters finally got access to the part of the building where the fire started.
Lanita Smith, 25, who lives on the second floor, said she woke up to loud sounds and thought someone was breaking into her apartment through the back door. When she got up, she saw the back door in her kitchen on fire.
She said she opened the front door and saw smoke, but she was able to run out into the front yard. “The fire was upstairs and downstairs,” she said. “My whole porch was on fire.”
Smith turned around and saw her boyfriend hanging out of her apartment window. He wasn’t able to follow her out, so he jumped and hurt his wrist. He was taken to a hospital and his condition was stabilized, she said.
Smith said a woman from a garden apartment talked loudly on the cellphone next to her while she was outside. “That b — — burned my building,” Smith heard her say.
Other people jumped from apartments on the second and third floors on the south side of the U-shaped apartment building.
Turner, who has lived on the block for 40 years, said he ran outside when he heard someone yell for help. “All I know is I came out and I see the building in flames,” Turner said, his voice shaking.
The building, its apartments facing 81st Street and Essex Avenue, has failed every annual inspection dating to 2011, according to records from the Chicago Department of Buildings.
The most recent failed inspection was in November 2015. City officials were unable to access most of the apartments or the rear porches to fully investigate the conditions of the structure, records show. In the areas city officials were able to investigate, they found a porch that was improperly secured to the building, an interior stairwell missing pickets and mice droppings in a kitchen.
Among several violations listed in previous inspections were missing and non-functioning smoke detectors, non-functioning emergency lighting, fire extinguishers with expired tags, protruding nails on porches and rats inside a unit.
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