Anna Perez stood in the middle of North Cicero Avenue in Austin on Friday afternoon, cars passing by her to the left and right slowly as she implored drivers to honk their horns.
“Justice for Anakin!” she called out a day after her nephew, Anakin Perez, 9, was fatally struck by a car while on his way to McNair Elementary School.
On the sidewalk, her family, young students in maroon collared shirts and community members chanted with her. A day after the fatal collision, Anakin’s family gathered near the school to demand justice after the driver was released without criminal charges.
“He (was) a child that (was) just excited to go to school,” Anna Perez, Anakin’s aunt, told the Tribune Friday.
Anakin was struck by a light-colored Chevrolet sedan traveling westbound at around 7:40 a.m. Thursday in the 4800 block of West Walton Street, the same block as McNair school, police said. He was rushed to Stroger Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The results of an autopsy performed Friday were pending, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
The woman driver was initially taken into custody but was released without criminal charges, police said. She was issued a citation for failure to exercise due care for a pedestrian in the roadway, police said.
By Friday afternoon, a memorial of Spider-Man balloons, stuffed animals, flowers and candles had amassed outside the school, where Anakin was a fourth grader.
“He was an amazing kid,” Perez, 38, recalled. “He was very outspoken, very funny, very outgoing.” He loved his sports, too, football especially, she said. In the center of the makeshift memorial for Anakin sat three footballs and a helmet.
Perez’s favorite thing about Anakin was his love for the game, she said. “He used to get mad if you didn’t catch his play in football,” she said. “He would catch the ball — he was a wide receiver — and he’d be like, ‘Did you catch that? Did you catch that?’”
Valeria Fernandez, Anakin’s grandmother, said she doesn’t know what to do without Anakin.
“I don’t know how to deal with it, or help my daughter deal with it, because it’s really hard. I never expected,” she said, faltering and choking back sobs. “I expected to die before him because I’m the grandma. I’m supposed to die before him.”
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