NSC does yet not know whether this was a “hate crime,” but regardless, in the context of recent murders of Asians in Chicago, it is yet another tragic and senseless loss of a good person to unecessary violence.
A 26-year-old queer man was killed in Chicago’s Palmer Square neighborhood on Saturday.
Suraj Mahadeva was shot in the head while waiting outside a friend’s home around 3:25 a.m., according to authorities. On Thursday, more than 100 friends and family members gathered for a memorial for him at the Center on Halsted, Chicago’s LGBTQ+ community center.
“Suraj was a beautiful, brilliant person — always charismatic, effervescent, happy,” a friend, J. Saxon-Maldonado, said at the memorial, according to local TV station WBBM.
Mahadeva worked as a medical technician. When he wasn’t at his day job, he taught children with autism how to swim, assisted young people experiencing homelessness, and promoted local LGBTQ+ Pride events, his sister Althea Mahadeva told Block Club Chicago.
“He liked everything and everyone, and what he loved the most was helping people,” she said.
Mahadeva was killed only a few days before he was to go on a family trip.