St Jude banner
CLOSE

*The relatives of Chicago’s youngest victim of a fatal shooting is reaching out to the community for answers on who killed their son.  On Wednesday, 9-year-old Antonio Smith was said to be playing close to the alley in the Greater Grand Crossing area of south Chicago, when he was shot in the chest. No one knows why he was in that particular location because he didn’t live there. He was shot at least four times and fell in a backyard on the South Side. Antonio’s  relatives have now made a plea to the shooter, who still remains at large.

“He was just a child, just a baby, still had a whole life ahead of him. And like, why? Just a child,” said Kenya Eggleston, victim’s cousin.

Smith was shot around 4 p.m. on Wednesday in the 1200-block of East 71st Street. And neighbors who spoke with ABC7 seemed both dazed and confused in recounting the story.

“At first I didn’t know if they were really shots or not. I just heard pop, pop, pop, pop, pow. So I just kept doing what I was doing,” said Dave West, a neighbor.

“It hurts my heart, really, to see the young kids just, just killing each other. And school is getting ready to start,” said Robert Blake, neighbor.

And in a most disturbing account, witness Ashiea Smith said, “We don’t know what happened. We don’t know if he was running from someone. This is a dead end alley. So he had to be running from somebody trying to go up on the tracks and cross over.” Smith’s relatives live in one of the buildings near the alley.

Though evidence was sought by forensic investigators and police dogs who combed the neighborhood, there is no news of their findings at this time.

“I just want whoever did this to turn themself  in because he was a 9-year-old innocent baby. He didn’t deserve that,” said Rasheda Eggleston, Antonio’s cousin.

Source Eurweb.com