CHICAGO — Allen Hall hunched at a picnic table outside the University of Chicago Medical Center last week under the beating sun, his head in his hands.
A few days before, Hall’s 24-year-old daughter, Arneka McReynolds, had taken a special trip down to Chicago with her fiance from their home in Michigan to attend the Simeon Career Academy alumni cookout. That night of July 19, Hall woke up to his son banging on his front door, and he learned his daughter was at the hospital after being shot in the head.
Many people who attended the event had decamped to the Dan Ryan Woods after the official cookout ended. Others headed to south suburban Calumet City. And hundreds, including McReynolds, made their way to a Chatham parking lot on West 87th Street overlooking the Dan Ryan just before midnight when the gunfire started…