Quantcast

The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
Read the press release here.

Boy, 13, Killed, Six Others Wounded in West Side Shooting

By Alex Parker | July 25, 2014 6:37pm | Updated on July 26, 2014 9:33am

CHICAGO — A 13-year-old boy was fatally wounded Friday night in a shooting that also injured six other people on the city's West Side, authorities said.

The shooting occurred about 6 p.m. in the 700 block of South California Avenue in the East Garfield Park neighborhood, police said.

Police released scant details Friday night, but said the boy died from a gunshot wound to his head.

The shooting appeared to be gang-related, police said, and authorities said the boy had gang ties.

Chicago Fire Department officials said two people were critically wounded in the shooting, but information released by police indicated less serious injuries.

Five shooting victims were taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where their conditions stabilized, said Sgt. Bob Kane, a Chicago Police Department spokesman. One victim, a 15-year-old boy, was shot in his right foot. Three 14-year-old boys sustained gunshot wounds to their left legs, and a 21-year-old man was shot in his right leg, police said.

Another shooting victim, a 25-year-old man, sustained a graze wound to his abdomen, and was treated on the scene, Kane said.

The 13-year-old boy who was killed, identified as Samuel Walker of the 3000 block of West Flournoy Avenue, was pronounced dead on the scene at 6:22 p.m., according to the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office.

The mass shooting came less than a week after 11-year-old Shamiya Adams was killed by a stray bullet that shot through the window of a friend's home during a sleepover, and two days after Darren Foggey, 16, was fatally shot through a window while sitting with friends.

Darren's death was the result of a neighborhood dispute, according to reports. Shamiya was killed after an alleged gang member, Tevin Lee, 18, shot at rivals in a crowd in retaliation for an earlier fistfight between two 14-year-olds, police said.

In announcing charges against Lee Thursday, Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy decried the easy access to guns that exists in Chicago.

"And now we have another child murdered," McCarthy said. "At the end of the day, you introduce a gun into a fistfight and this is what happens."

McCarthy related the case to the death of 14-year-old Endia Martin, allegedly shot to death by another 14-year-old girl in an argument over a boy. In the Martin case, authorities said the alleged shooter asked her 25-year-old uncle for the gun. He was charged in the case as well.

For more neighborhood news, listen to DNAinfo Radio here: