HPHS Alum: Nutter's Homicide Brings Violence Close to Home

This opinion piece was submitted by Jacob Zuckerman. He is a Highland Park High School alum, and just finished his freshman year at Oberlin.

I’ve stopped reading the newspaper since Mother’s Day. 

After Newtown, Boston, and New Orleans, I couldn’t handle anymore of what appeared to me as violence for violence’s sake. So I first heard about the death of Colin Nutter through my Facebook newsfeed. After deciding that the status I saw was too morbid to be a joke, I Googled his name and was appalled to see that someone I went to school with was found dead on the side of the road.

ABC news reported that a dog walker in Wilmette found Nutter dead via gunshot. The Chicago Tribune reported obvious signs of foul play. Both sources reported that there had been a burglary in their house a month before Nutter’s death. But I couldn’t get over the title: “Body Found In Wilmette Identified as Highland Park Man, 20”

After reading all the articles I could find, I couldn’t figure out why I was so stuck on the title. And then it hit me. They called him ‘Highland Park Man, 20’. I’ve never been to Newport, Boston, or New Orleans. When I read about the three dead after the marathon or the 19 shot on Mother’s Day, no matter how hard I tried, I could never picture the victims. I’d never known them, and never will. 

But when I saw some one of whom I’d met once in a chance encounter, and gone to middle school and high school with, identified as ‘Highland Park Man, 20’ I realized what a tragic event had just occurred.

While we live in a safe community, no place will ever be without the danger and violence that exist everywhere in the world. Colin was only 20, a year older than I am. After hearing about what happened, I went looking though my old yearbooks until in my seventh grade yearbook, I found a picture of Colin as an eighth grader. I was shocked to see the very picture of him used by the Chicago Tribune and ABC news was Colin Nutter as an eighth grader. The picture is in black and white and it looks as if he released his smile just before the shot was taken. That is the ‘Highland Park Man, 20’ we all saw in the news.

The world stopped for the massacres around the country, and now our world stops for Colin. He grew up a stone’s throw from Sunset Park in the geographical center of our town. We passed his house in transit, brushed past him in the hallways, graduated with him, knew him, befriended him, and loved him. While what happened to Colin may still be unclear, what we know is that this is a very personal encounter with what we usually see as the impersonal news.

Our community has been affected deeply with what we normally see as everyday violence. And now more than ever we must stick together as a community to remember Colin Nutter, and keep our thoughts and prayers with the Nutter family.