RIVERDALE — Jerrelle Samuels was sitting with a friend on his front porch Monday night, playing music from his iPod and enjoying the warm weather.
About 12:30 a.m., a dark-colored sedan drove by the home in the 300 block of East 134th Street, and someone inside the car opened fire, police said.
Samuels was hit in his head and was taken to Metro South Medical Center where he was pronounced dead just before 1 a.m. Tuesday, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office.
Tuesday morning, family and friends of Samuels stood on the porch where the 20-year-old had been gunned down.
One friend, who declined to be named, said he was with Samuels on the porch when the shooting started. He said he still was rattled by what had happened.
"They shot at me," he said, looking at the ground. "I was lucky. I didn't get hit."
When asked why someone would want to shoot up the porch, he shrugged and said he had no idea but added that shooting is nothing knew in the Far South Side neighborhood.
"They're shooting just for the fun of it," he said. "I hear gunshots every day, see ambulances every day."
A man who said he was Samuels' uncle described his nephew as a good kid. Friends described Samuels as a "homebody" who was on the quiet side. They said he liked video games, computers and other electronics.
Samuels' uncle said he worked for Waste Management and attended Fenger Academy High School. He said Samuels had become yet another victim of the violence that plagues many of Chicago's neighborhoods.
"Nobody's immune to it," he said.
And that is something the 20-year-old may have been well aware of himself. On Aug. 25, Samuels posted a photo of Chicago on his Facebook page with a caption:
"[Love] my city despite all the killings and murders I wouldn't ask for a better place to grow up."
Nobody was in custody in connection with the slaying as of Tuesday morning, police said.
