Who Remembers The Robert "Yummy" Sandifer Case?
Lil nig.ga was WILD!
In August 1994, Robert "Yummy" Sandifer was a 68-pound, 11-year-old member of the Black Disciples street gang in Chicago. He was also a chronic delinquent, having compiled a long record that included armed robbery at 9 and arson at 10.
That summer Sandifer had come before Juvenile Court Judge Thomas Sumner. Due to abuse allegations against his mother, Sandifer had been staying with his grandmother. But because she wasn't able to keep him in line, officials at the state's Department of Children and Family Services decided to put him in Lawrence Hall, a group home on Chicago's North Side. Sandifer ran away. Another 13 unsecured private facilities rejected him. Officials then decided to send him to an out-of-state locked residential facility, the kind that was outlawed in Illinois at the time. But it can take up to a year, sometimes longer, to make such arrangements. While Sandifer languished on a waiting list, Sumner had the option of letting the boy go or sending him to a temporary detention center, where, under state law, he could not be held for more than 30 days. Agency officials petitioned Sumner to keep Sandifer detained until his name came up on the out-of-state waiting list. Instead, the judge decided he had to let the boy go home to his grandmother.
Less than two months later, while still on the out-of-state waiting list, Sandifer shot an innocent 14-year-old girl while firing at rival gang members. He was then shot and killed under a viaduct by fellow gang members trying to deflect the attention Sandifer's shooting had brought to the gang. Sandifer and his alleged killers, Derrick and Cragg Hardaway, 14 and 16 respectively, became the state's first high-profile superpredators.
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