CHICAGO — A promising life was cut short when 17-year-old high school football standout Jeremiah Parker was fatally shot in a carjacking in Austin on Monday night, those who knew the teen say.
At 8:34 p.m. Monday, Parker had just got out of a car and was going into a home in the 500 block of South Lockwood Avenue when an armed man demanded his car keys, police said.
The teen struggled with the carjacker and the gun went off, hitting the boy, police said. The shooter then ran away, police said.
Parker was hit in his chest and arm and was taken in serious condition to Stroger Hospital, where he was later pronounced dead at 10:42 p.m., according to the Cook County Medical Examiner's office.
No arrests have been made, police said.
Parker lived in the 700 block of North Homan Avenue in Humboldt Park and attended Roosevelt High School, 3436 W. Wilson Ave. in Albany Park, where he was a standout running back and linebacker on the football team. He dreamed of playing college football, according to his former coach and posts on the slain teen's Facebook page.
"This is my only way out," Parker wrote on one Facebook post, in response to to people who ask "why I talk and think about football so much."
The teen had posted his football highlight reel to the sports site Hudl three days before he was slain.
Among the many remembering Parker on Tuesday morning was Germaine Padilla, Parker's coach at Roosevelt for three years.
Parker was one of the "most respectful, curteous [sic], nicest and hard working players I ever coached," Padilla said in a Facebook post.
"I have worked with inner city kids for nearly 20 years now and sometimes things like this happen and when you know they lifestyle they live, then a tragedy like this is almost expected," Padilla said. "Jeremiah was not that kid! He was an amazing young man..."
A woman who identifies herself as Parker's stepmother said in a Facebook post that the loss has shaken the family.
"I watched you grow from a baby to a young man with a Barry White voice," said Shona Wiley. "The thought of losing your life over something so senseless is unimaginable."
Alderman Deb Mell (33rd) called Parker a leader and a "victim of senseless gun violence."
Today we mourn the loss of Jeremiah Parker 17 a student at @RHSChicago , a victim of senseless gun violence. ... https://t.co/Y0on6se4ZB
— Deb Mell (@debmell) November 8, 2016
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