© Manuel Martinez/WBEZ
Sandra Botello, 42, stands for a portrait on the spot where her car was seized and eventually sold to a private tow company in the city of Chicago on December 20, 2018.
Sandra Botello, 42, stands for a portrait on the spot where her car was seized and eventually sold to a private tow company in the city of Chicago on December 20, 2018.
Now 41, she and her children had been evicted from her home in Idaho when her landlord's property was foreclosed.
The move to Chicago indeed delivered opportunities. She earned an associates degree and then enrolled at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and now works as an executive administrative assistant downtown. And, two of her four kids snagged scholarships to private schools.
But her time in Chicago has also been mired with a major hurdle. It started with citations for the city road tax collected through "city stickers." After failing to keep up with ticket payments, the city seized her car and sold it to a private towing company, only to have none of the sale price applied to her debt.
Botello is not alone.
Comment: The deadly shooting was apparently unprovoked with no motive, so police need all the help they can get to find this murderer.
Update (Jan. 7): Police have announced that the shooting appears to be a tragic case of mistaken identity and that they are looking at two African American suspects. One man has been arrested in connection with the shooting.