CHICAGO — Saieed Ivey, a former prep basketball star at Chicago's Simeon Career Academy, was shot and killed in the Los Angeles area, where he had gone to attend college, play basketball and escape Chicago's violence.
Social media erupted with memorials Thursday over his violent death.
According to KCBS Los Angeles, Ivey was shot while arguing with another man around 5 a.m. He was found inside his car.
Police in Monterey Park, the suburb where it happened, said that around 4 a.m. Thursday, its officers responded to a call of shots fired at an apartment complex.
Officers arrived and found a person in the rear seat of a car with a gunshot wound in his chest, according to B. Hung, a Monterey Park Police spokesman.
Paramedics pronounced the man dead on scene, Hung said.
The incident was not an officer-involved shooting, Hung said.
Ivey was featured in the Tribune for his basketball talents in 2013. He was attending East Los Angeles College in suburban LA.
"Sometimes I hate going through the trenches, but you have to wait your turn," Ivey told the Tribune in 2013, describing his aspirations to go pro. "Everybody's path is different. It doesn't mean they can't get to the same place."
In 2014 Ivey was recruited to attend Governors State University in south suburban University Park, where he spent a year playing alongside his younger brother, Sondale Conner. Ivey played for the school's club-level team so that he'd be eligible to play for a four-year school after that, according to Governors State University athletic director Anthony Bates.
"He was just a winner," Bates said of Ivey. "He was a tremendous basketball player, and he had so much confidence in his abilities."
During the year Ivey was playing, the team went 23-1, including one game they won after Ivey made a heroic last-second shot, Bates said.
Ivey was also a "highly intelligent" student, Bates said, having placed on the school's honor roll.
"His dream was to play professionally, like a lot of great players," Bates said. "I just feel horrible that we won't get the opportunity to see his full potential be reached."
Saieed left Chicago to escape the violence. Tragically his life was taken today in Cali. His life mattered. Our lives matter. May he RIP.
— BLMChicago (@BLMChi) June 9, 2016
Go to work saieed!!! 🙏👼🏀 r.i.p saieed pic.twitter.com/fYCiTeTlEg
— STICK TALK VINCHI (@rara085) June 9, 2016
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