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Man Killed, 13-Year-Old Shot On West Side Block: 'We Need To Leave Chicago'

By  Alex Nitkin Kelly Bauer and Joe Ward | July 26, 2016 12:12pm | Updated on July 26, 2016 2:48pm

 Two people were wounded and one killed after a shooting in Austin on Tuesday morning, officials said.
Austin Shooting July 26
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AUSTIN — A drug- and gang-fueled "war" is plaguing a West Side block, and on Tuesday neighbors say it led to a shooting that left two teens wounded and a man dead.

At 11:10 a.m., a group of three people — a 13-year-old boy, a 17-year-old and an 18-year-old man — were standing on the sidewalk in the 100 block of North LaPorte Avenue when two men walked out of an alley and shot at them, said Officer Nicole Trainor, a Chicago Police spokeswoman. The shooters ran away and no one was in custody.

The 18-year-old man was shot in his shoulder, Trainor said. He was taken to Stroger Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The man has been identified as Keyon Boyd, according to sources briefed on the shooting.

The 13-year-old boy was hit multiple times in his legs and the 17-year-old was hit in his left shoulder. They were taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where their conditions were not available but they were listed as "stable," Trainor said.

Neighbors on the block said they saw "five or six" men parked in an alley in the 4900 block of West End Avenue, two of whom pulled out guns and shot toward a group standing at the corner of West End and LaPorte Avenue.

Among the group was a 13-year-old boy, who "couldn't get away as fast" because he was sitting on a bicycle, according to a woman on the block who declined to give her name.

"He was holding his leg, hollering 'help me, help me,'" the woman said.

After the shooting, the boy's bike and a pair of sneakers lay on the sidewalk.

When paramedics arrived and got to work wrapping the boy's leg wound, a man ran down the block from Leclaire Avenue, according to Ed and Mary, two other neighbors who declined to reveal their last names. 

"He was just yelling 'He's dying, he's dying!' No one realized someone else was shot."

When Ed looked over at the intersection, he saw one man lying motionless on the ground, and another sitting up and holding his side.

"I would say I was shocked, but in this neighborhood, I'm sad to say, people have become kind of numb to it," Ed said. "When I told some people around here this happened, their reaction was pretty much to say 'wow' and keep walking." 

Other neighbors said the block was a major marketplace for heroin and marijuana, and violence had become more common in recent years.

"There's a war going on around here," said Janice Johnson, who was in her home on West End when she heard the shots ring out across the street. "It's just crazy. I've never seen it like this before."

Maria, who also declined to give her last name for fear of her safety, had brought her two daughters to visit their great aunt on the block when they heard about 15 shots, they said.

As the four of them stood silently on the sidewalk across from the taped-off crime scene, Maria's 8-year-old daughter, Amani, tugged on her dress.

"We need to leave Chicago," she said softly. "This place is bad."

Living in North Lawndale, a West Side neighborhood similarly inundated with crime, Maria said she was considering her daughter's suggestion more heavily every day.

"There's got to be some place in the suburbs, or maybe out of state," she said. "No place left in this city for me."

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