Family Struggles to Cope After Boy Killed in Humboldt Park

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A Chicago family is left in shock and mourning on Thursday after a 7-year-old boy was shot and killed this week.

According to his family, Akeem Briscoe was washing his hands in the bathroom of his Humboldt Park home on Wednesday when a bullet shattered a window and struck him in the stomach.

“A 7-year-old boy, man,” Terribia Misters, Akeem’s uncle, said. “Didn’t get a chance to live life yet.”

 While Akeem’s family struggles to make sense of the tragedy, Keshawana Barr can empathize with their struggle, as her 7-year-old son Legend continues to recover after he was shot while his family was driving to church in the Roseland neighborhood earlier this month.

 “The bullet went straight through his thigh, but it also shattered his femur on the way through,” she said.

 Legend was fortunate to survive the shooting, but his life has been completely upended.

“I am happy he didn’t die but I am just trying to get his quality of life to feel like he didn’t die. Because that is how he felt,” Keshawana said. “He would have rather just died because he was just in so much pain and his emotions were so bad.”

 What these two families share in common is the trauma, the pain and the suffering that comes with senseless gun violence, and now they’re left to pick up the pieces after experiencing these tragedies.

“His brother and sister don’t feel safe coming back to this house because of what happened to their brother,” Misters said.  

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