7-year-old Chicago boy shot, killed with bullet intended for gang member father
7-year-old Chicago boy shot, killed with bullet intended for gang member father
A 7-year-old boy was shot and killed by a bullet intended for his alleged gang member father during a Fourth of July holiday weekend plagued with violence in Chicago, according to police.
Amari Brown was coming back from a celebration with his father Antonio on the West Side of the city when shots rang out. He was hit in the right side of the chest just before midnight on Saturday.
A 26-year-old woman that the boy was standing with was also struck in the chest. She was hospitalized and is in stable condition.
‘My son was a character man,’ Antonio Brown told ABC 7 Chicago at a prayer vigil on Sunday in the Humboldt Park neighborhood where the boy was shot.
‘He was a clown man – just like me.’
Amari’s grandmother Deidre Holman gave a direct statement to the shooter.
‘You might as well turn yourself in,’ she said. ‘Because this 7-year-old, our family member, did nothing to you.’
The boy’s maternal grandmother, Vedia Hailey, wondered when the city’s violence would stop.
‘It’s crazy,’ she told the Chicago Tribune. ‘Who would shoot a 7-year-old boy in the chest? Who would do that to a baby?’
Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said Antonio Brown was a ‘ranking gang member’ with 45 previous arrests.
He said the father was not cooperating with investigators following the death of his son.
Amari was one of three people who were killed and 27 who were wounded during an eight-hour period in Chicago following Fourth of July celebrations.
