"He Was Just A Kid"
Killed CPS student had been hounded by gangs
By LORA LE SAGE and PEGGY CASSIDY
Updated 1:14 PM CST, Mon, May 4, 2009
Alex Arellano, was chased, burned, beaten, shot and dumped in a South Side gangway Saturday, and his family says the Chicago Public School student was a good kid.
His uncle, Juan Tirado, said he wasn't involved with gangs, but he was being hassled by them.
Tirado said it was because of the harassment that the 15-year-old boy with learning disabilities had been pulled from Chicago Discovery, part of Bowen High School.
His family said he had not been seen since Thursday night, when he was picked up by a friend, perhaps a girlfriend. Family members had tried unsuccessfully to file a missing persons report. They printed up fliers and distributed them in the neighborhood.
On Friday, the family received a call saying Arellano was beaten with bats in an area miles from their home. On Saturday, they got another call from a girl who told them Alex was in the 3000 block of West 54th Place, according to police.
"When we were going to pick him up, we received another call saying, basically, that he was pretty beat up," the uncle said, his voice cracking with emotion.
Police found the boy's body Saturday afternoon about 10 miles from his home, severely beaten and burned.
"He was knocked down by bats, and after he got up he started to run but was struck by a car that was chasing him," Tirado told the Chicago Tribune.
Tirado said that he knows there were witnesses to the heinous murder, but no one is willing to share what they know.
"They're cowards," he said of the boy's killers. "I don't see them as human."
The family is pleading with any witnesses to the attack to come forward.
"Somebody had to have seen or heard something," the boy's uncle said.
"Just think of it as if it was one of your own," he pleaded.
Police confirmed Sunday that Arellano had no gang affiliation or criminal history. But a photo on Arellano's MySpace page showed him throwing what looked like gang signs.
He is the 35th CPS student to be killed this year.
Anyone with information on who may have been involved with Arellano's death should contact the Area One Detective Division at 312-747-8380.
Copyright Associated Press
First Published: May 3, 2009 3:28 PM CST
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