CHICAGO — “I’m with my kids.” Those were a man’s last words before being shot in the head by two teens Thursday afternoon in the Brighton Park neighborhood of Chicago.
The Chicago Tribune reports that the 25 year-old man was talking to his girlfriend and kids through a van window when two teens strolled up beside the vehicle. Police and multiple witnesses said the teens asked the man what he was “about” or what gang he belonged to.
After telling the two, “I’m with my kids,” one teen turned to the other ordering him to shoot.
The man again implored, “I’m with my kids,” his girlfriend echoing the same plea, “He’s with his kids.”
The teen took out a pistol and shot the man in the forehead. After the man dropped to the ground the teen stood over him and shot him twice more in the chest, according to police.
A neighbor ran outside to see what had happened, and after finding the man unresponsive, walked back home.
The man’s two kids, a 2 year-old and a 5 month-old, were rushed inside by their aunt.. According to the aunt, the 2-year-old screamed and cried for over an hour.
The girlfriend was crying at her boyfriend’s side when paramedics came and rushed the man to the hospital, where he later died.
This shooting adds to the increasing violence that Chicago neighborhoods like this one have become accustomed to. Many neighbors shared their concerns with the Tribune.
“Everybody is scared,” said the man who first attended to the victim, “Nobody on this block is going to let their kids go outside unless they’re outside with them, and they’re not going to let them out of their sight.”
“Either you have your kid in the house, or you let them go outside and they join a gang,” neighbor Olivia said. “We kept ours in the house.”