Murder charges filed against 2 teens after stray bullet killed 7-year-old Akeem Briscoe in Humboldt Park
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Two teen boys have been charged with murder in a shooting that sent a bullet through the wall of a building and killed a 7-year-old boy in the Humboldt Park neighborhood.
Joseph Serrano, 19 and a 16-year-old boy are now facing first degree murder charges.
An 18-year-old was originally charged in the murder, but charges against him have been dismissed.
The boy, Akeem Briscoe, was washing his hands in the bathroom of a home in the 2600 block of West Potomac Avenue on the evening of Wednesday, Oct. 26, when a bullet came through the window.
Chicago Police Chief of Detectives Brendan Deenihan said it all started with a conflict between two groups in an alley outside the home. One group was in a car behind the home where Akeem lived, when another came up through a gangway and started shooting at the first group.
No one in the first group in a car was struck.
But at that moment at 8:22 p.m., Akeem – a son, a brother, a nephew – stepped into the bathroom in his home to wash up before dinner. A bullet flew through the window and hit him in the abdomen.
Akeem was rushed to Stroger Hospital of Cook County, where he died.
"This should be one of the safest spaces your child should be, and a bullet comes through the window," said police Supt. David Brown.
Following the shooting, Akeem's family said they wanted to see whoever is behind the shooting to be punished to the full extent of the law.
"My nephew just got hit with a stray bullet. You can die any in Chicago," Akeem's uncle, Terribia Misters, sad the day after the shooting. "There's no age limit to a bullet that ain't got no name on it."