16-year-old victim's name needed to be released sooner

Speaking at a Career Day fair at Gifford Street Alternative High School last month, I fielded a couple questions about the demands of my job.

Education requirements. Story deadlines. Starting pay. Travel.

"Do you have to go out of town a lot?" I remember one student asking.

"Not really," I replied. "With the U-46 beat, I stay pretty local. You guys are the news."

Just five weeks later, I found some bitter irony in those words.

Gifford Street - which serves as an alternative high school for about 160 of the district's students - was hit with two consecutive losses in less than a day.

Late on Oct. 31, 16-year-old Jaime Benitez was shot in a gang-related shooting outside of a Halloween party on Douglas Ave.

Just hours later, Christian Godoy-Olvea was one of four teens who died in a head-on car collision that took place early Saturday morning in unincorporated Burlington Township. Police said the crash occurred about 1 a.m. Saturday when Erick Silva, 18, of Streamwood crossed the center line at Burlington and Plato Roads in his Pontiac Grand Am and struck a 1999 Pontiac Grand Prix head on. Godoy-Olvea, a passenger in the Grand Am, was pronounced dead at the scene.

Through one of my colleagues who covered the crash, I was aware that Godoy-Olvea was a recent Gifford Street graduate.

When I called the school on Monday to see how students were handling the news, I learned that the program had lost not one, but two students.

Officials would only tell me that the other student was a 16-year-old male. His name hadn't been released by police, so they couldn't release it either.

To help process their grief, Gifford Street students Monday had constructed a makeshift memorial with pictures, journal entries and handmade posters placed in a mounted glass case next to both students' funeral information.

When I arrived at the school that afternoon to interview students and staff members, I saw students clustered around the case, the left side covered up by a large sheet of white paper during my visit.

In case you're guessing, Benitez's side was covered up.

Students were fully aware who had died, and were in the process of honoring their classmate in their own way.

But the police, apparently, prevented the school from revealing Benitez's name to me.

It was not released until approximately 8 p.m. that day, long after students had gone home for the day. Long after we had found and confirmed his name through outside sources. And just hours before his wake and funeral were to start the next.

I understand the respect that needs to be given to an ongoing investigation. But as the saying goes, to every rule, there is an exception. When the community already knows a victim's name, what is the purpose of refusing to release the information?

Digging for information is part of my job. But hiding it shouldn't have to be part of a grieving school's.