Courtesy the Pendleton family

Hadiya Pendleton during her trip to Washington for President Obama's inauguration.

A week after Chicago teenager Hadiya Pendleton was shot dead, her killer is still on the loose -- but her family says they are confident they will see justice.

"It's just a matter of time when this person is turned in," said Shatira Wilks, a cousin of the 15-year-old whose death made headlines across the country, focused attention on Chicago's murder rate and became part of the national debate over gun control.

Pendleton was gunned down while hanging out with friends in a park near her well-regarded school, just days after she performed with a marching band during President Barack Obama's inaugural festivities.

Police suspect she was the innocent victim of a gang member who mistook the teens for rivals on his turf. A reward for his capture has grown by the day, and cops said tips are still coming in.

"This bounty is now $40,000," said Wilks, who is acting as the family spokeswoman while Pendleton's parents prepare for her funeral Saturday.

"I think the family member or friend of the person sheltering him is viewing it as a lottery ticket, watching it go up so quickly," she said. "And I believe that at some point, they are going to turn this person in for the money."

She said whoever raised the shooter failed society by not teaching him right from wrong and is now compounding it by letting him dodge responsibility.

"How can you allow parents to suffer like this?" she asked.

Pendleton's mother, Cleopatra Cowley, and her father, Nate "Anthony" Pendleton, are facing the nightmare of burying their only daughter this weekend. A thousand or more people are expected to attend Friday's wake and the funeral the next day.

"She has a large following in death, as well as in life," Wilks said. "And we are already seeing change in Chicago as a result of her death."

She pointed to the city's decision to remove 200 cops from desk duty and put them on the streets to fight crime and several anti-crime marches and vigils that have been held since the murder.

Related:

• Handful of Chicago neighborhoods see most murders
• Chicago marchers ask Obama for help over gun violence

Courtesy the Pendleton family

Hadiya Pendleton and friends during their trip to Washington for President Obama's inauguration.

Chicago cops have been deluged with tips about who might have shot Hadiya Pendleton, the high school sophomore killed a week after she performed during President Barack Obama's inaugural festivities.

"Fortunately, the community is stepping up and giving us everything that they've got, from rumors to whatever they know," Police Supt. Garry McCarthy told NBC Chicago on Friday.

"Something's gonna pan out."

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has appealed to city residents to drop the no-snitching credo of the streets and come forward with any leads about Pendleton's killer.

Police and clergy also have offered a $40,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the gunman who opened fire on a group of teens gathered in a park after school Tuesday, apparently mistaking them for rival gang members.

Pendleton, 15, was shot in the back, collapsed a block away and died at a hospital. The honor student quickly became the face of Chicago's stubborn gun problem.

The city leads the nation in gun seizures, and its murder rate has been edging up while other cities have been trending downward. More than 500 people were slain there last year, and last month was its bloodiest January in a decade.

On Friday morning, a woman was shot and killed when a van pulled alongside her van on Lake Shore Drive and a gunman fired up to 14 rounds. Police said the shooting was related to gang and drug activity.

Related:

• After Hadiya's death, Chicago to put 200 more cops on the street
• Chicago shooting victim starred in anti-gang video

Hadiya Pendleton's family faced the most heart-breaking of tasks Thursday: choosing the dress the 15-year-old shooting victim will wear at her funeral.

"It's been 48 hours of nothing but love, but now they need some time alone," cousin Shatira Wilks said.

The Chicago teen's death on Tuesday -- just a week after she performed during President Barack Obama's inaugural festivities -- put her loved ones in the spotlight.

They consoled the high school sophomore's many friends and cousins. They met with the mayor and spoke to the city's top cop.

Then they asked to be left alone for a day, so they could finalize plans to say farewell to a girl whose death had made headlines across the country and to grieve together.

For Pendleton's 10-year-old brother, Nate, known as Junior, that meant spending time in his big sister's now-empty room.

"He has been sleeping in her bed at night," Wilks said. "It's really sad. He was a serious little brother. And she loved being a big sister."

Pendleton was gathered with fellow members of the volleyball team in a park near the selective King College Prep High School when a gunman opened fire on the group Tuesday afternoon.

Scott Olson / Getty Images

Hadiya Pendleton's parents, Nate and Cleo, and her 10-year-old brother, whom she called Junior.

Police believe the shooter mistakenly thought the teens were members of a rival gang hanging out on disputed turf. He has not been caught.

Pendleton's mother, Cleopatra Cowley, told MSNBC's Al Sharpton on Thursday how she was at work when she got the call that her daughter had been shot.

"I took the first cab I could come across to get to my baby," she said, racked with sobs. "Never in a million years did I imagine I would be getting a call that my baby was shot."

She spoke of her daughter's love of books, her wide-eyed trip to Washington and her promising future.

"She loved life ... and she didn’t want to be anything more than she was – and that was just 15," Cowley said.

The pastor of the family's church said there is a sliver of consolation in the knowledge that the teen's death is stirring more debate about crime and guns in a city where more than 500 people were murdered last year.

"Something has to be done," Pastor Courtney C. Maxwell said, not long after Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced he was putting 200 more cops on the street. "I pray something positive comes out of this."

He said he had known Pendleton for about five years and was working on the tribute he will read to mourners at the Greater Deliverance Temple Church.

"What do you say about a young person to her hurt parents, to a hurt community, to a hurt nation?" he said.

Related:

• Friend: Slain Chicago teen said, 'I think I got shot,' then 'she just fell'
• Gunned down after 'the happiest day of her life'
• After Hadiya's death, Chicago to put 200 more cops on the street

Four years before she became the innocent victim of what may have been a gang turf war, Hadiya Pendleton starred in an anti-gang public-service video.

Courtesy the Pendleton family

Hadiya Pendleton and friends on her visit to Washington for President Obama's inauguration. She was shot in Chicago a week later.

She was a sixth grader at Carter G. Woodson Elementary School when she delivered a message against the kind of violence that led to her death in a Chicago park on Tuesday.

"Hi, my name is Hadiya... this commercial is informational for you and your future children," she says in the video, which was first reported by DNAinfo.com.

"So many children out there are in gangs, and it's your job to say no to gangs and yes to your future."

The other girl in the video pointed out that too many kids are killed by gang violence, by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Police say that appears to be exactly what happened to Pendleton, who was hanging out with volleyball teammates after school when a gunman opened fire on a group of teens. Only a week before, she had been part of a performance at President Obama's inauguration festivities.

Investigators believe the park Hadiya and her pals were in may have been at the center of a turf war, even though the kids were not affiliated with any gangs.

Pendleton's cousin, Shatira Wilks, said most of the family had never seen the video – part of an anti-violence project with the non-profit Digital Youth Network -- before it surfaced after her death.

"But it shows you about Hadiya's personality. She has always been a part of anything that represented good. She never liked being part of anything negative and that is why so many people loved her," Wilks said.

"This video is an affirmation, an acknowledgement of where she stood -- and the tragedy behind it is this is exactly how she died."

The Digital Youth Network said the student-produced piece was part of a project to counter violence through media, and called Pendleton a “learner and a creative voice.”

 “We are inspired by the passion Hadiya and the youth of Chicago have shown for sculpting a better future for themselves and others and will continue to support these efforts in any way we can,” the group said in a statement.

 At a press conference Thursday, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said the city saw "both an increase in gun violence and gang-related activities" in the past year.

“Before a flame becomes a fire… put it out," he said in announcing new anti-crime measures.

Related stories:

• Friend: Slain Chicago teen said, 'I think I got shot,' then 'she just fell'
• Gunned down after 'the happiest day of her life'
• After Hadiya's death, Chicago to put 200 more cops on the street

dnainfo.com

Hadiya Pendleton, 15, a student at King College Prep, was killed Tuesday at a Chicago park near the school, authorities said.

A 15-year-old Chicago girl gunned down a week after she performed during President Obama’s inaugural festivities was remembered Wednesday as a “walking angel” – the last person her family could imagine dying by a bullet.

Hadiya Pendleton was an honor student, a marching-band majorette, and a doting big sister who thought about becoming a journalist or a pharmacist or even getting into politics after she witnessed history in Washington last week.

The biggest trouble the insatiable reader ever gave her parents: running up their credit card buying books on Amazon.

“I couldn’t ask for a better child,” her mother, Cleo Cowley, said through tears at her Chicago home. “She didn’t give me any hard time at all. She had a heart of gold.”

A sophomore at Chicago’s selective King College Prep High School, Pendleton was walking with fellow members of the volleyball team in a park Tuesday afternoon when the skies opened. They ducked under a canopy to get out of the rain, joining other teenagers.

At that moment, Chicago police say, a gunman came running down an alley behind the park, opened fire and then darted into a waiting vehicle and took off. No arrests have been made.

Courtesy the Pendleton family

Hadiya Pendleton during her trip to Washington.

Pendleton was struck in the upper back, and a 16-year-old schoolmate was hit in the leg. They ran about a block before she collapsed on the street, police said. She died at the hospital.

When it happened, her mother was at work at the TransUnion credit company, in a meeting. Her cellphone rang and she saw it was one of her daughter’s friends and quickly answered.

“She was screaming on the phone that Hadiya’s been shot, she’s been shot, and I just didn’t understand,” said Cowley. “I had to get someone to help me understand that my baby has been shot.”

The murder – about a mile from Obama’s Chicago home – quickly caught the attention of Washington during a day of debate over gun violence.

The White House called it a “terrible tragedy,” and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel called the shooter a “gangbanger” and a “punk” who had stolen the dreams of a girl with a bright future.

Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., was emotional as he spoke about Pendleton’s inauguration activities during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on guns.

 “Just a matter of days after the happiest day of her life, she’s gone,” he said.

Cowley said the trip to Washington -- an invitation to a band competition that was part of the inauguration festivities -- was “everything” to her daughter.

“She was extremely excited about it, to go there and witness history and perform at the Capitol. She told me, ‘Mom, I might think about getting involved in politics,’” she said.

For the moment, though, she was focused on traveling with the band to New Orleans for Mardi Gras and a planned educational trip to Dublin, Paris and London in March. “She even thought about studying abroad,” her mother said.

At King College Prep, which is in an upscale neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side, tears flowed Wednesday. The band played in her honor. Many students changed their Twitter handles to remember their fallen classmate, described as bubbly and sweet.

“She was always smiling and laughing,” said Tyler Genovesi, 14. “She was just a really nice person.”

Cousin Shatira Wilks recalled how Pendleton was designated to be the “elf” at Christmas this year and delighted in handing out gifts to everyone. The only presents she had asked for was books.

“Honestly, she was a walking angel,” Wilks said.

But also a normal teenager. She texted her friends like crazy, listened to rock music on her headphones, posted silly pictures of herself, and gently tweaked her parents on Twitter.

She had a 10-year-old brother, Junior, who worshipped her.

“He’s crushed because she loved, loved, loved her brother,” Cowley said. “From the moment I had him, she wanted a little sibling and at the age of 5 she started mothering him.”

“She had a heart that was huge,” her mother said, her voice cracking. “She had her own brain. She didn’t roll with the crowd. If there was someone being ostracized, she was their friend, because she said everyone needs a friend.”

In short, there was nothing about Pendleton that would have led anyone to predict that she would be shot – even in a city where more than 500 people were murdered last year and more than 40 have been killed this month.

Cowley said that two nights ago, she was watching a TV program about a woman who had lost all four of her children to gun violence.

“Never in a million years did I think I would get a call that my own baby had been gunned down the next day,” she said.

Told that her daughter’s death had been mentioned on the floor of the Senate, where Durbin complained that Chicago was “awash in guns,” Cowley’s composure broke and she began to sob.

“Something does need to change,” she said.

Related:

Tale of two cities: Homicides leap in Chicago, plummet in New York

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dnainfo.com

Hadiya Pendleton, 15, a student at King College Prep, was killed Tuesday at a Chicago park.

A 15-year-old girl who performed at President Obama's inauguration last week was shot dead Tuesday while hanging out with friends after school in bullet-scarred Chicago.

Hadiya Pendleton -- described by family as a “walking angel” -- was standing under a canopy in Vivian Gordon Harsh Park when a gunman ran down an alley, opened fire and fled in a white car, police said.

Pendleton was shot in the back but managed to run about a block before she collapsed, officer Laura Kubiak said. She died at the hospital.

A 16-year-old boy was wounded in the 2:20 p.m. incident. Police said Pendleton, who had no criminal record, was probably not the intended target.

“Never in a million years did I think I would get a call that my own baby had been gunned down,” Pendleton’s mother, Cleo Cowley, said through tears from her Chicago home.

She said she was at work Tuesday afternoon when she got an unexpected call from one of her daughter’s friends.

“She was screaming on the phone that Hadiya’s been shot, she’s been shot, and I just didn’t understand,” said Cowley.

Courtesy the Pendleton family

Photos of Hadiya Pendleton from her trip to Washington.

She and other relatives described the teen as a honor student, an insatiable reader who still found time to play volleyball and a twirl a baton in the school marching band.

“As usual, the bad guy aims, but he never hits the other bad guy . . . He hits the one that hurts the most to lose,” the victim’s godfather, Damon Stewart, 36, who is a police officer, told the Chicago Sun-Times.

“I changed her diapers, I played with her growing up. My heart is broken.”

A sophomore at selective King College Prep High School, Pendleton had traveled to Washington to perform with the band at inaugural events.

“It was the highlight of her young 15-year-old life,” Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said Wednesday at a Senate hearing on gun violence.

“Just a matter of days after the happiest day of her life, she’s gone.”

White House spokesman Jay Carney called the shooting a “terrible tragedy” and said the Obamas were praying for Pendleton’s family.

Cousin Shatira Wilks said the inauguration trip was the talk of a family gathering around New Year’s, but the young majorette was even more excited about something else: plans to travel to Europe this spring with the band.

“She was an honor student all her life,” Wilks said. “Honestly, she was a walking angel. She never once gave her mom any problems ever.”

Wilks said the teen doted on her 10-year-old brother, Junior, who is devastated.

“At Christmas this year, she was designated the elf and she handed out all the gifts,” she recalled.

“She loved rock music. She was always listening and playing to music,” Wilks said,. “What you would usually catching her doing is texting on her phone, like all the teenagers.”

Pendleton last tweeted just before 1 a.m. on Tuesday. “I’m tired,” she wrote.

Many of her classmates changed their Twitter handles to honor her and decried the violence that had claimed an innocent life.

“You are more than loved and missed,” one wrote. “Your laugh smile and silly happy personality has made my day more times than I can remember. Nobody deserves this, especially not you.”

Friends of the young majorette described her as a bubbly, well-liked student.

“She was always smiling and laughing,” said Tyler Genovesi, 14. “She was just a really nice person. … There’s a lot of people crying in school today. It’s very sad. The band is playing for her right now.”

Pendleton's murder was one of three shooting deaths in the city on Tuesday. More than 40 people have been shot dead in Chicago since the beginning of the year. There were 506 homicides in the city last year, a 16 percent increase even as other large cities, like New York, saw murders drop.

“We are awash in guns,” Durbin said, noting that six times as many guns as confiscated in Chicago as in New York each year. We have guns everywhere and some believe the solution to this is more guns. I disagree.”

Cowley broke down sobbing when she was told that her daughter’s death had been mentioned in the Senate.

“Something does need to change,” she said. “Where are the guns coming from? I don’t own a gun. My daughter was not violent. I never would have thought she would die like this.”

Related:

Tale of two cities: Homicides leap in Chicago, plummet in New York

President Barack Obama walked the walk Monday, hopping out of his limousine to hoof it down Pennsylvania Ave. with the first lady during the inaugural parade, to the delight of crowds who waited hours in the cold for a chance to see history in the remaking.

His second-in-command stole at least part of the show, though.

The Obamas didn’t press much flesh, waving and smiling from a presidential distance. But Vice President Joe Biden worked the crowd like he was stopping by the county fair, racing from one side of the road to the other to shake hands and hug kids.

When NBC’s Al Roker shouted out a question, asking Obama how the day was going, he got an answer: “It’s going great!” Biden did him one better, dashing over to pump Roker’s hand.

The voluble veep gesticulated wildly at spectators, whipping them into even more of a frenzy – quite a feat considering the ear-splitting cheers that followed the president and Michelle Obama as they made their way from the Capitol to the White House.

They began the journey – one that presidents have made since Thomas Jefferson – in a black Cadillac that left from the foot of the Capitol.

Cries of “O-bama! O-bama!” swept down the avenue in waves as the limo made its slow crawl along the street, its flags fluttering in the wind, Secret Service agents walking briskly on the flanks.

Crowds were substantially smaller than four years ago; no official estimate was given out, but half a million people used the Metro to get to the route.

Still, they stood five-deep or more, bundled against the 40-degree weather, holding cameras over barricades for a picture of the first couple looking out the limo’s tinted windows.

“It was beautiful,” Tara Lucas, 38, an administrative assistant from Pearland, Texas, told the Associated Press. “All I saw was a face in a window and it was remarkable.”

“You felt the love,” added her friend, Connie Griffin, 41.

About halfway down the route, the presidential vehicle stopped, the doors opened and the Obamas got out. Hand in hand, they walked for more than a block, following the blue line that is painted on the asphalt every four years.

Then they got back in the limo, only to emerge again closer to the White House. Michelle Obama blew kisses at the stands. Her husband, a smile plastered across his face, gave his constituents the thumbs up, every gesture greeted with more applause.

People in Obama hats and buttons – and at least one woman in an Obama beach blanket -- yelled to them from the sidelines. Wide-eyed children danced and flung their hands out, hoping for a chance to touch the newly sworn commander-in-chief.

People had flocked to the route before sunrise to ensure a good view of the president and the pageantry -- from a red-coated fife-and-drum marching, to kids on 6-foot unicycles who joined floats from across the country, to NASA’s famous mohawk-topped flight controller Bobak Ferdowski on a float with a model of the Mars Curiosity rover.

Some were showing their support for Obama, others just enjoying the spectacle and symbolism.

Vicki Lyons, 51, of Lakewood, Colo., told the AP she was "mostly Republican," but attending the inauguration was "like standing in the middle of history."

"No matter who the president is, everybody needs to do this at least once," she said.

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