Boy, 14, accidentally shot and killed while friends passed around gun in Prospect Heights, police say
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A 14-year-old boy was killed on Friday in northwest suburban Prospect Heights, when another teen accidentally shot him while friends were passing around a gun.
Prospect Heights police said, around 3:15 p.m. Friday, officers responded to a call from a person requesting an ambulance for a person with a gunshot wound at an apartment in the 500 block of Piper Lane.
When officers arrived, they began administering first aid to a 14-year-old boy who had been shot. Paramedics took over a short time later, but the boy was pronounced dead at the scene at 3:47 p.m., police said. The Cook County Medical Examiner's office identified the boy as Eric Casique.
Three other juveniles and a 19-year-old man were at the apartment with Eric at the time, and the juveniles first told police the 19-year-old had accidentally shot the boy.
Police said, when detectives questioned the man the next day, he cooperated with police, and admitted to running from the apartment, but denied shooting Eric.
When police questioned the other juveniles who had been at the apartment again, they changed their story, and admitted that they were passing around an unloaded .380 caliber pistol and "dry firing it" before one of them inserted a loaded magazine and chambered a round.
The magazine was removed from the gun a short time later, and one of the juveniles pointed it Eric, and believing the gun wasn't loaded, pulled the trigger, shooting the boy in the chest, apparently unaware either that a round had been chambered, or that the gun was capable of firing without a magazine being inserted.
The juvenile who fired the shot confessed to being the shooter, and police believe the shooting was accidental.
The juvenile who shot Eric was charged with involuntary manslaughter and taken to the Juvenile Temporary Detention Center in Chicago.
Court information was not immediately available.
Casique's family set up a GoFundMe page to raise $17,000 to cover funeral expenses.
