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Boy, 13, Died in His Mother's Arms After Being Shot

By Darryl Holliday | January 8, 2013 12:55am
 13-year-old boy died in his mother's arms while on summer vacation in Chicago.
13-year-old boy died in his mother's arms while on summer vacation in Chicago.
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CHICAGO — Tyquan Tyler, a 13-year-old who family members say was visiting family in Chicago from downstate, was killed here two weeks after arriving.

He was the victim of a gunshot wound to the chest.

The Cook County Medical Examiner's Office has a record of Tyler's address as being in  the 6500 block of South Washtenaw Avenue in Woodlawn, but the teen resided in East Moline, according to his cousin Sherita Jones.

His mother had sent him to live with relatives on the western Illinois border after witnessing a rash of violence on the city's streets.

She was the one to hold the boy's body as he died.

"I held him in my arms on the sidewalk and talked to him while he was fighting for his life,"  she told the Chicago Tribune. "I regret letting him go to the party. He was my baby — so loving and respectful."

Earlier that night, Tyler had begged his mother to attend a party on the 6200 block of South Rhodes Avenue with his two sisters.

The family was leaving the party in a group when several men began to fire into the crowd, according to Jones.

The shots weren't for him, she said, citing yet another case of a South Side resident being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Tyler attempted to flee but was struck in the chest at 1:25 a.m., according to the medical examiner. He was later taken to the University of Chicago Medicine's Comer Children's Hospital and pronounced dead hours later.

"He was a jokester," Jones said. "He liked basketball. He was just a 13-year-old kid."

Several memorial videos for Tyler have been posted on YouTube—many by friends of the teen.

His murder was one of four in that same weekend.