CBS News
Young Chicago mother bravely fought for weeks to stop her abuser before being shot and killed
CHICAGO (CBS) — Maria Roque was just 34 years old when she was shot and killed on the steps outside her West Side Chicago home, in front of her 8-year-old daughter.
Her daughter and her 14-year-old son both witnessed Roque take her last breath.
In the weeks before she was killed, Roque repeatedly took all steps domestic violence victims are told to take. She got a protection order against her former boyfriend Kenneth Brown. She also repeatedly went to the Chicago Police Department for help. She filed one police report after another and never gave up.
But the system failed her.
Those who loved Roque hope her legacy will be one of change to keep domestic violence victims alive.
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One of Roque’s close friends, Adriana Valdez, tried to help.
“It wasn’t once, it wasn’t twice, it was multiple times Roque went screaming for help with actual evidence,” Valdez said about Roque filing numerous police reports.
Roque had photos, threatening text messages, and video. She filed her first police report on Halloween 2023 – saying she was thrown to the ground and pinned down with a foot on her chest.
Then on Nov. 8, Roque filed another one because her car tire was slashed. On Nov. 11 and 12, Roque reported repeated harassing calls and texts. Then on Nov. 13, she reported a rock thrown through her front window.
What did police do? They closed one case and suspended all the rest – meaning the cases were kept open, but were not being investigated.
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Maria Roque’s twin brother, Andres Roque, saw her struggle to get any help from police.
“Police don’t do much, they just say it is what it is,” said Andres Roque. “What do we have police for, then?”
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Andres Roque had his own run- in with Brown. They got into a fight after he says he was defending his sister from Brown. Andres says his glasses were broken and his phone was taken. A police report was filed but no action was taken.
“I always told her don’t let anybody hurt you. She started to open up more and tell me things,” said Andres Roque. “She’s like, ‘I need to get out from here. I deserve better,’ and I told her, you do.”
Then on Roque’s birthday, Nov. 24, her car was set on fire. She had the video which shows a person by her car, the fire starting, and then the person calmly walking away.
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For Maria Roque, this was more than just a car—it was a memory she made with her brother years before. The twins bought twin cars.
Documents show police had the video, but they ended up suspending this case too.
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“She knew that this man was definitely capable of much more than damage to material things,” said Valdez.
Roque filed three more police reports on Nov. 28, Nov. 30, and Dec. 8. These were for harassing calls and texts.
Two cases were suspended, and one just stayed open. In all the complaints, there was not a single mention of police ever questioning Brown—not once. There was no contact and there were no arrests. That’s important, when looking at what failed.
Roque had a protection order. Valdez said, another domestic violence survivor, made sure to take Roque to get one.
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“I know how scary it can be,” let’s do it so you don’t feel alone,” said Valdez.
She helped Roque navigate the system. The Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County’s office offers guidance on getting protection orders. The office also has a center where people can get help.
In Roque’s case, the protective order should have given her a chance to have her abuser arrested after every violation. But there were problems. First, it wasn’t served, then it wasn’t enforced.
The Cook County Sheriff’s Department had to “serve” Brown, that’s what it’s called. To successfully serve, the Sheriff’s Department had to give Brown court papers in person. Only then could he be arrested for any protection order violations.
The Sheriff’s Office said it tried to serve him twice with no luck.
The process is complicated. The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office provided information to navigate the system and phone numbers for places to get help.
We showed Benna Crawford, managing director at Legal Aid Chicago all of Roque’s police reports. The nonprofit represents hundreds of domestic violence survivors every year and has provided resources.
“This is a crime that is taken less seriously,” said Benna Crawford. “Maria’s case, and so many cases like it, demonstrate all of the different points where there was opportunity to do that intervention—and that opportunity was missed.”
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On Nov. 28, Brown was served the protection order and related court papers. Roque went back to police that same day with a new harassing text and repeated calls.
Police should have arrested him for violating the protection order. But they didn’t.
Crawford said this sent a message to Roque: “That she was going to have to do everything on her own.”
Police did the bare minimum of what they were required to do by law. They kept telling Roque that she could try and get an arrest warrant herself from the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office.
“I’m not aware of any other type of case or crime that one could be the victim of where the burden could be shifted to the victim to go out and do the investigation, and put together the evidence, and go to the state’s attorney and convince the state’s attorney’s office that they should press criminal charges,” said Crawford. “That is typically a police function.”
According to the state’s attorney’s office, only domestic violence victims can get their own warrants. It gives victims another avenue to get their abusers arrested. Roque was told six times she could do this herself.
“Just so heavy a burden to bear, and one that probably shouldn’t have been hers,” said Crawford.
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“The last thing she told me in a text message, he told her, ‘Oh I have a gun for you’,” said Andres Roque.
Maria Roque’s family wants what happened to her known—her final minutes after fighting so long; what happened when the system failed her.
On Dec. 13, Roque left early in the morning to take her daughter to daycare before going to work. She buckled her daughter in their vehicle, then walked back toward her home.
Home surveillance video shows that from across the street, a man quickly ran up behind her. She screamed at him about her daughter in the car. The little girl could see everything.
But that didn’t stop the man. Neighbors’ cameras caught the gunfire and a man running away. Maria’s son rushed outside an attempted to perform CPR on his mother. Maria was taken to an area hospital where she died.
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Two weeks later, Brown turned himself in to police. He’s the father of the little girl who was in the car during the shooting.
Brown has pleaded not guilty to murder charges.
“She said she saw her dad kill her mom, and how my nephew did CPR,” said Andres Roque. “She’s having nightmares.”
Something Roque’s children should know is that she never gave up. On Dec. 12, one day before the shooting, instead of going to police, this time Roque went straight to the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office. She was able to get an arrest warrant for Brown that same day.
Roque was finally so close to stopping Brown. But this help came too late. She was shot and killed just hours later.
“There needs to be a meaningful response early on to interrupt that before we get to the point where we get to a homicide,” said Crawford.
“That was the fear we had every single day,” said Valdez. “That something happened to Maria, that it was this man.”
Illinois Domestic Violence Hotline: 877-863-6338
National Domestic Violence Hotline: 800-799-7233
CBS2 visited Maria’s home with Andres Roque a few months after she was killed. Everything is still as she left it. Still propped up on her bed, Maria’s vision board and how she saw her future.
“She wanted this year to be a new chapter, and it was too soon she was gone,” said Andres Roque. “Now I feel empty. She was part of my life that was supposed to be forever.”
Also changed forever are the lives of Maria Roque’s children. Her daughter moved in with a family member. Her son is out of state with his dad.
Maria Roque is one of about 28,000 people who got protection orders in the last year in Cook County alone. It’s important to know that only Chicago residents can take police report numbers directly to the state’s attorney to get a warrant. Prosecutors can only access records from that department.
Here is information for Chicago residents from the Cook County State’s Attorney:
“Chicago Residents: If the offender was not arrested and you want the case reviewed for criminal charges:
Chicago residents can take their police report to the Domestic Violence Courthouse located at 555 W. Harrison St., Chicago, IL 60607 to have the case reviewed for criminal charges. The State’s Attorney’s office reviews cases during business days Monday-Friday 8:30-1:30 pm.”
Chicago Police Department officials would not explain the failures in this case. They sent this statement:
“The Chicago Police Department extends our condolences to Maria Roque’s family as they grieve her tragic loss. Domestic violence is a serious crime, and our members work with professionalism to support the victims and all those affected by the trauma of domestic violence. We are also working with our City of Chicago and Cook County partners to strengthen our coordination and the resources available to those experiencing domestic violence.”
If you are in a domestic violence situation, or know someone who is, The Network, an advocacy group for domestic violence victims, put together a toolkit on how to create a safety plan.
Bela Karolyi, the charismatic if polarizing gymnastics coach who turned young women into champions and the United States into an international power, has died. He was 82.
A spokesperson for USA Gymnastics confirmed to CBS News by email that Karolyi died Friday. No cause of death was given.
Karolyi and wife Martha trained multiple Olympic gold medalists and world champions in the U.S. and Romania, including Nadia Comaneci and Mary Lou Retton.
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“A big impact and influence on my life,” Comaneci, who was just 14 when Karolyi coached her to gold for Romania at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, posted on Instagram.
The Karolyis defected to the United States in 1981 and over the next 30-plus years became a guiding force in American gymnastics, though not without controversy. Bela helped guide Retton — all of 16 — to the Olympic all-around title at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles and memorably helped an injured Kerri Strug off the floor at the 1996 Games in Atlanta after Strug’s vault secured the team gold for the Americans.
Karolyi briefly became the national team coordinator for USA Gymnastics women’s elite program in 1999 and incorporated a semi-centralized system that eventually turned the Americans into the sport’s gold standard. It did not come without a cost. He was pushed out after the 2000 Olympics after several athletes spoke out about his tactics.
It would not be the last time Karolyi was accused of grandstanding and pushing his athletes too far physically and mentally.
During the height of the Larry Nassar scandal in the late 2010s — when the disgraced former USA Gymnastics team doctor was effectively given a life sentence after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting gymnasts and other athletes with his hands under the guise of medical treatment — over a dozen former gymnasts came forward saying the Karolyis were part of a system that created an oppressive culture that allowed Nassar’s behavior to run unchecked for years.
Still, some of Karolyi’s most famous students were always among his staunchest defenders. When Strug got married, she and Karolyi took a photo recreating their famous scene from the 1996 Olympics, when he carried her onto the medals podium after she vaulted on a badly sprained ankle.
Despite losing his boxing match to Jake Paul, Mike Tyson in a social media post Saturday said he had “no regrets” to getting “in ring one last time.”
The boxing legend was defeated by social media star Jake Paul in a highly anticipated fight on Friday night with an age difference of over three decades between the two contenders.
Netflix said Saturday that 60 million households worldwide tuned in to watch the match. The two fighters went eight full rounds, with each round two minutes long. Paul defeated Tyson by unanimous decision and the 27-year-old upset boxer and 58-year-old former heavyweight champion hugged afterward.
Paul was expected to earn about $40 million from the fight, and Tyson was expected to take around $20 million for the fight, according to DraftKings and other online reports.
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Tyson said on his social media that “this is one of those situations when you lost but still won. I’m grateful for last night.”
The fight almost didn’t happen after Tyson experienced an ulcer flare-up while on a plane in March. He addressed his illness Saturday, writing that he “almost died in June.” He said he had eight blood transfusions and “lost half my blood and 25lbs in hospital and had to fight to get healthy to fight so I won.”
Tyson retired from boxing in 2005 after a 20-year career. He last fought in a 2020 exhibition match against former four-division world champ Roy Jones Jr.
“To have my children see me stand toe to toe and finish 8 rounds with a talented fighter half my age in front of a packed Dallas Cowboy stadium is an experience that no man has the right to ask for. Thank you,” he said.
Alex Sundby and
contributed to this report.
In their final meeting, China’s leader Xi Jinping told U.S. President Biden that his nation was “ready to work with a new administration,” as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take over.
The two leaders gathered Saturday on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. Mr. Biden was expected to urge Xi to dissuade North Korea from further deepening its support for Russia’s war on Ukraine. It marked their first in-person meeting since they met in Northern California last November.
Without mentioning Trump’s name, Xi appeared to signal his concern that the incoming president’s protectionist rhetoric on the campaign trail could send the U.S.-China relationship into another valley.
“China is ready to work with a new U.S. administration to maintain communication, expand cooperation and manage differences so as to strive for a steady transition of the China-U.S. relationship for the benefit of the two peoples,” Xi said through an interpreter.
LEAH MILLIS/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Mr. Biden, meanwhile, spoke in broader brushstrokes about where the relationship has gone and reflected not just on the past four years, but on their long relationship.
“Over the past four years, China-U.S. relations have experienced ups and downs, but with the two of us at the helm, we have also engaged in fruitful dialogues and cooperation, and generally achieved stability,” he said.
Mr. Biden and Xi, with top aides surrounding them, gathered around a long rectangle of tables in an expansive conference room at Lima’s Defines Hotel and Conference Center.
There’s much uncertainty about what lies ahead in the U.S.-China relationship under Trump, who campaigned promising to levy 60% tariffs on Chinese imports.
Bobby Djavaheri, president of Los Angeles-based Yedi Houseware Appliances — which manufactures its products in China — told CBS News in an interview this week that such tariffs “would decimate our business, but not only our business. It would decimate all small businesses that rely on importing.”
Trump has also proposed revoking China’s Most Favored Nation trade status, phasing out all imports of essential goods from China and banning China from buying U.S. farmland.
Already, many American companies, including Nike and eyewear retailer Warby Parker, have been diversifying their sourcing away from China. Shoe brand Steve Madden says it plans to cut imports from China by as much as 45% next year.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Biden administration officials will advise the Trump team that managing the intense competition with Beijing will likely be the most significant foreign policy challenge they will face.
It’s a big moment for Mr. Biden as he wraps up more than 50 years in politics. He saw his relationship with Xi as among the most consequential on the international stage and put much effort into cultivating that relationship.
Mr. Biden and Xi first got to know each other on travels across the U.S. and China when both were vice presidents, interactions that both have said left a lasting impression.
“For over a decade, you and I have spent many hours together, both here and in China and in between. And I think we’ve spent a long time dealing with these issues,” Mr. Biden said Saturday.
But the last four years have presented a steady stream of difficult moments.
The FBI this week offered new details of a federal investigation into Chinese government efforts to hack into U.S. telecommunications networks. The initial findings have revealed a “broad and significant” cyberespionage campaign aimed at stealing information from Americans who work in government and politics.
U.S. intelligence officials also have assessed China has surged sales to Russia of machine tools, microelectronics and other technology that Moscow is using to produce missiles, tanks, aircraft and other weaponry for use in its war against Ukraine.
And tensions flared last year after Mr. Biden ordered the shooting down of a Chinese spy balloon that traversed the United States.
