Andre Thomas worked to prevent gun violence. His killing leaves a family and colleagues searching for answers.

What does a violence-prevention organization do when the man leading it is killed by gunfire? For the people who worked alongside Andre Thomas, the first response was to return to the scene, look for answers and begin planning help for those affected. For his family, there was a more intimate task: telling two children that the man raising them would not be coming home. ¹

Thomas, 57, the CEO and executive director of Integrity & Fidelity, died after a Halloween-night shooting in Chicago Heights. Officers found him with multiple gunshot wounds in the 400 block of West 14th Street, and he died after being taken to an area hospital. The Cook County medical examiner’s office ruled his death a homicide. Thomas lived in nearby Matteson; his organization’s work reached Chicago neighborhoods and south suburban communities affected by gun violence. ^{1 2}

The killing leaves a family without a father figure and a violence-prevention group without its leader. It also leaves basic investigative questions unresolved. The reporting establishes the block where Thomas was found, but differs on whether he was shot inside his office or in a parking lot. No subsequent official account establishing a suspect, motive, arrest or charge through November 4 has been verified.

Integrity & Fidelity was formed in 2021. Before leading it, Thomas had worked with violence-prevention organizations including Ceasefire, spending years rebuilding his life after serving time in prison. That history was part of his path into prevention work—not evidence of why he was killed. Nothing established about the shooting connects a motive to either his incarceration or his work. ^{1 2}

Thomas argued that reducing shootings required investing in the communities experiencing them. Employment was central to his case. “No one with a 40-hour job is going out and shooting and killing,” he told the Chicago Sun-Times in an earlier interview. It was a forceful argument for jobs as prevention, not a universal finding about who commits violence. His emphasis was on giving people something durable to build their lives around. ²

His family told CBS Chicago that he had spent Halloween handing out candy before heading to his office, where he was waiting for the rest of his crew. Nita Ragland said Thomas was raising her children as his own. They were 12 and 14, and she described him as the only father they had known. She was still trying to work out how to tell them he was gone. ¹

Chicago’s 17th Ward alderman, David Moore, mourned both the private loss and the reach of Thomas’s work. “This is an unimaginable loss, not only for his family, friends, and colleagues, but also for the countless individuals and communities whose lives he touched through his leadership, commitment, and service,” Moore said in a public statement. ²

The police response began at 9:24 p.m. Saturday, October 31, 2026, after a SoundThinking gunshot-detection alert, according to the initial CBS Chicago account citing Chicago Heights police. The Sun-Times subsequently reported that Thomas was found around 9:25 p.m. Those times describe a call and an approximate discovery; they do not establish the exact moment shots were fired. The shooting happened in Chicago Heights, a separate municipality south of Chicago, not within the city where Thomas also worked. ^{1 2}

The precise scene remains less clear. The Chicago Sun-Times reported on November 2 that Thomas was found shot in his office, citing police and the medical examiner’s office. CBS Chicago’s November 1 account described a parking-lot shooting and surveillance video near the same block shortly before 9:30 p.m. These are differing descriptions of the scene, not simply an early unnamed-victim report overtaken by a later identification. Neither account explains how the office and parking-lot descriptions fit together. ^{2 1}

According to CBS Chicago’s description, the surveillance video shows someone walking toward a parked car with its headlights on and its driver’s-side door open. Thomas was shot several times at close range. The reporting does not publicly identify the person approaching the car or establish a motive. The most precise location supported across the accounts remains the 400 block of West 14th Street. ^{1 2}

By Sunday morning, detectives were visiting nearby businesses for evidence while Thomas’s colleagues returned seeking answers. Business owners told CBS Chicago that the parking lot had experienced recurring crime and that, unlike other nights, no police patrol car had been parked there Saturday night. Those observations do not explain the patrol arrangement or establish that a police car’s presence would have prevented the killing. ¹

Illinois State Police and the South Suburban Major Crimes Task Force were called in to assist Chicago Heights police. Thomas’s family also told CBS Chicago that he had worked closely with law enforcement and that police had assured them dozens of detectives were investigating. That staffing description is the family’s account of an assurance they received, rather than an independently confirmed headcount. ¹

Faith leaders and leaders of Thomas’s organization planned emergency meetings within the following 24 hours, the Sunday CBS account said, to assess support for people affected. Their completion and outcomes have not been established. The immediate challenge was already clear: people whose work was to help others live through violence now had to organize that help for their own colleagues and family. ¹