A 15-year-old boy is dead after a shooting in Chicago's South Deering neighborhood late Friday night.
Deon Gilbert Jr. and a friend were walking near Trumbull Park in the 10400 block of Bensley Avenue around 10:45 p.m. when a dark-colored minivan pulled up and the driver shot Gilbert in the abdomen, according to police and witnesses.
"It sounded like it was in my yard," said Joe Cuellar, who lives in the neighborhood. "I looked out the window and heard somebody moan, and I saw a boy in the grass."
Cuellar took cover and called 911.
Deon was taken to Comer's Children's Hospital, where he later died.
"The doctor came out and told me he didn't make it," said his mother Ida Hall.
Hall said her son, who was a sophomore at Butler College Prep in the Pullman neighborhood, loved to draw and play football. The youngest of her four kids, Hall said Deon wanted to go to college on a football scholarship and become an architect.
"He's the baby, everybody's baby," Hall said.
Hall said the last time she spoke to Deon was 8 p.m. Friday. Hall said Deon told her earlier in the night that he was going to be out with a friend.
"I knew all his little friends. I had all his little friends' numbers in my phone," said Hall. "He didn't hang out with gang bangers. He didn't hang out with dope dealers. He was 15."
But Hall said Deon was suspended from school two weeks ago for fighting and said she wonders if that incident is connected to his death.
"Of course, no one's talking, but I need some answers to why my baby is not here with us," Hall said.
In the meantime, people living in the neighborhood where the shooting happened are on edge.
"It's unfair," Cuellar said. "This neighborhood, I've been here a long time. (There are) kids, families down the street that can't come out, can't come out and play. When I was a kid, I used to play in this park every day, every single day. Can't do it anymore."
