14-Year-Old Killed In Englewood Shooting
Updated 02/21/12 - 7:55 a.m.
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A 14-year-old boy was killed Tuesday afternoon when he was shot in the Englewood neighborhood.
As CBS 2's Mike Parker reports, the boy was shot in the chest in a third-floor apartment at 7036 S. Yale Av. around 3:30 p.m., police said.
He was taken to the University of Chicago Comer Children's Hospital, where he was later pronounced dead, according to police.
Family members identified the victim as 14-year-old Damian Rolle.
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The suspected shooter, the boy's 15-year-old brother, was taken into custody for questioning, although the shooting appears to have been accidental.
Police recovered a gun from a vacant lot next door to the apartment building where the boy was shot. It was believed the shooter tossed the gun into the vacant lot after the shooting.
The distraught mother of the victim and the shooter left the scene of the shooting shortly before 6 p.m. Other relatives were equally upset.
"This is an awful thing, I don't know what happened, but my sister is a working mother and everything," said the victim's aunt, Janice Smith. "She don't know what's going on with these kids when they are at home. She do not know."
The boy's uncle, Anthony Smith, said, "it's sad. It happens when they have a gun available."
Family members said they don't know how the gun got into the house.
"You never know who they're hanging out with, or who's asking them to, you know, hold something for them. You never know," Smith said.
Community activist Andrew Holmes said there's a lesson for parents in what happened.
"Do you know what's in your house or what they're bringing in your house? And, parents, educate them tough on this gun violence," he said.
Relatives said Damian's mother, fearing something like this might happen, searched the house many times and reportedly found nothing.
A published report in the Chicago Sun-Times says the boy and his brother were both autistic.
The shooting happened just across the street from where, in 2008, singer Jennifer Hudson's mother, brother and nephew were slain.
