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Teen Was on His Way to Mentoring Program When He Was Killed, Neighbor Says

By Mauricio Peña | April 24, 2015 4:42pm
 Friday morning Kiara Martinez, 24, a family friend, dropped off a few teddy bears, tea-light candles and hung a red poster on the gate where Sutton lived with his grandmother. (Insert Aquasha Jones)
Friday morning Kiara Martinez, 24, a family friend, dropped off a few teddy bears, tea-light candles and hung a red poster on the gate where Sutton lived with his grandmother. (Insert Aquasha Jones)
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DNAInfo/Mauricio Pena

SOUTH SHORE — A 16-year-old waiting to be taken to a mentorship program was shot and killed Thursday evening outside his South Shore home, a family friend said Friday.

Amari Sutton "had some problems, but he was letting that life go," said neighbor and family friend R. Lee. "He just started this new program to try to get his life together."

Around 6 p.m., police found the teenager with gunshot wounds to his chest and neck in the 1400 block of East 73rd Street, said Officer Bari Lemmon, a Chicago police spokeswoman.

Amari was pronounced dead at the scene at 6:10 p.m., the Cook County Medical Examiner's office said.

Ron Thompson, 40, who lives in the building heard four gunshots and saw the teen fall to the ground near his window.  "It happened so quick," Thompson said. "These weren't stray bullets, they were clean shots and were clearly targeting him."

Another resident in the building, who wished not to be named, said she heard the gunshots but didn't leave her apartment. "This happens so much that I didn't want to get involved in the mess," she said.

Friday morning family friend Kiara Martinez, 24, dropped off a few teddy bears, candles and hung a red poster on the gate where Sutton lived with his grandmother.

Chicago Vocation School classmate Elizabeth Cooper called Amari a quiet person. "He was on point," Cooper said. "He went school and came home and didn't bother anyone."

"This is really crazy," Cooper said.

South Shore residents who had seen Amari around stopped by to sign the poster and expressed frustration with "kids getting killed" in Chicago.

"I wish it would stop," Lee said. "There are so many young people being killed out here. It's dangerous for anyone that's between 12 and 25 years old out here. It's like the wild, wild west."

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