CHICAGO — When Jesus Rega got his high school diploma, he didn’t get to walk across the stage.
He couldn’t. As classmates donned caps and gowns, he was bedridden after being hospitalized for a blood clot and too afraid to get in the car — more complications in a long recovery after being shot in the head and stomach while waiting for the school bus outside his Back of the Yards home last January.
Instead, Jesus, an autistic and nonverbal 22-year-old, celebrated with teachers and loved ones at the clubhouse of the southwest suburban neighborhood his family moved to after the Jan. 18 shooting. His parents ordered chicken and pizza, “everything he likes,” said his father, Philip Rega.
In spite of the savored day, Jesus’ recovery has been bittersweet. The healing process was slow for the young man who can’t speak but is quick to smile, hug and reach for a hand.
After the shooting, crippling fears of essential everyday activities overwhelmed Jesus. The dread has largely faded, leaving something close to normalcy for the family. Still, among many small changes, Jesus paces around the house more than he used to, said his mother, Anna Rega.
“There’s nothing wrong with it,” she said. “I think it’s just remembering what happened. He doesn’t understand.”
‘A long time to recover’
The assault began around 6:30 a.m. as Jesus and his younger brother, Demitri, a teenager who has similar special needs, waited with their father for the school bus.
Suddenly, three attackers yelled gang slogans at the Rega men, then began to shoot. The assailants fired more than 30 bullets. Philip Rega, who later recalled seeing only the flame from the barrel of the gun, pushed Demitri to the ground for cover, but he didn’t get to Jesus in time.
Jesus, then 21, suffered gunshot wounds to his forehead and to his stomach, close to his heart, his father said. In the shooting’s immediate aftermath, doctors feared the former King College Prep student would lose vision and taste as Jesus was hospitalized in critical condition. Surgeries to remove bullet and skull fragments and to support his brain and cracked cranium came next. A procedure to install a shunt followed.
Anna Rega visited her son in the hospital each morning during his initial six-week stay.
She wasn’t allowed to stay in the intensive care unit and still remembers coming home from the hospital at night to find her son’s bed empty. Her other son, Demitri, would walk around the house and pop into Jesus’ room, apparently looking for his brother.
“A mother should never have to go through what we went through,” she said.
Jesus came home in late February, but quickly returned to the hospital with a blood clot in his leg. When he was again released in the early spring, the Regas decided to leave the Back of the Yards apartment where the boys were raised.
The Regas used some of the nearly $40,000 they’d received in GoFundMe donations to move to a southwest suburb. Before leaving, Philip Rega had often been randomly harassed by gang members and ignored by police when he complained, he said.
“It got to the point where we just said, ‘No,’” he said.
“I wanted them to be safe,” Anna Rega said of the move. “I didn’t want to go through what I went through again.”
Jesus was weaker after his hospital stay. He couldn’t leave his bed. He wouldn’t shower, a change Philip Rega believes could be linked to the shower he took before leaving the house on the morning he was shot. The parents gave him sponge baths in bed and carried him to the shower.
They changed their son’s diaper in bed and fed him by hand. He’d push and whine as they tried to help.
The biggest struggle was getting Jesus into the car. He had once loved the rides as much as he loves watching wrestling, SpongeBob and Shrek, but after the shooting, he’d push, resist and walk away instead of getting into his seat. The struggles made medical appointments even more difficult.
“I don’t know how his brain actually thought about it,” Philip Rega said. “It was traumatizing for him to get in and out of the car or even go anywhere.”
Jesus regained strength in physical therapy, though he still doesn’t like to walk long distances. Many of his other apparently trauma-related changes gradually ended, his parents said.
He finally got out of bed on his own one spring day when he saw his parents playing with one of their grandchildren. In May, he started showering again, and in June, he got into his grandmother’s car by himself, another milestone.
But other struggles lingered. Sometimes when he had to leave, he’d point to his head and the door before heading back to his room, Anna Rega said.
He continues to whine more than before, his mother said, and he comes to her bed during thunderstorms.
“He took a long time to recover, but I’m just happy he’s here,” she said.
Even as Jesus’ condition improves, his parents continue to think every day about what happened . One sticking point continues to haunt them: The man who shot Jesus is still out there, unidentified and uncharged.
The thought makes Philip Rega want to “rampage,” he said.
“I’ve been thinking about that day. I want to go crazy over it,” Philip Rega said. “I want to see the person who did it get what he deserves, justice. He needs justice. We need justice, especially him. (Jesus) didn’t deserve what happened. Nobody does.”
He said Chicago Police Department officers misspelled Jesus’ name and left out the gunshot wound to his head on a police report. Philip Rega was interviewed the day of the shooting, and one officer checked on Jesus’ condition, but otherwise he hasn’t heard about the case.
“They said they were working on it, and that was it,” he said.
There are no new updates related to the shooting, a CPD spokesperson confirmed Wednesday.
Philip Rega said he believes officers are “doing what they need to do” but that more officers should be hired.
In recent months, Chicago police Superintendent Larry Snelling has repeatedly stressed that the department will be more communicative with the victims of violent crimes and their families. Snelling emphasized training will stress the need to keep those families aware of developments.
The father called on anyone who knows who shot his son to share information with police.
Reflecting on the last year, gratitude for 911 operators and GoFundMe donors were at the top of Anna Rega’s mind. But she also continues to hold her own vision of justice: She wished the men who shot Jesus would have come to the hospital to see him, covered in tubes and cords, struggling to survive.
