AUSTIN — A 13-year-old boy who was critically wounded by a stray bullet on the West Side Friday night had spoken out in an anti-violence video a year earlier, local media reported Saturday.
Zarriel Trotter, a student at Circle Rock Charter School, appeared in a PSA video titled "Our Black Boys," produced by a group called Black is Human, according to the Tribune.
"I don't want to live in a community where...people keep on getting shot, people keep on getting killed," the boy says in the video.
Zarriel was caught in the middle of a gun fight in the 5500 block of West Jackson Boulevard Friday evening when a bullet hit him in his lower back, police said. A family member told the Tribune that he had been returning home from playing basketball with friends.
The boy remained in critical condition after undergoing surgery Friday night, his school's principal, Elizabeth Jamison-Dunn, told the Sun-Times.
“It’s devastating when you see your students hurt,” she said. “They’re our kids, too.”
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