CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Two Chicago men have been convicted of the murder of a 7-year-old boy, among other charges, from a shooting that occurred nearly nine years ago in Humboldt Park.
Rasheed Martin, 28 and Jamal Joiner, 29 were found guilty by separate juries of murdering Amari Brown on the Fourth of July in 2015, while the boy was watching fireworks with his father.
Prosecutors said they were shooting at someone else when the boy was hit and a woman was also wounded.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, a prosecutor said both men armed themselves with 9-mm handguns and opened fire with the intention of killing someone that night and should have known their actions — firing repeatedly on a busy street filled with people celebrating Independence Day — could have caused someone’s death.
Witnesses who took the stand allegedly walked back on earlier statements or said they no longer recalled what happened.
Defense attorneys called those witnesses unreliable, and said some were convicted felons, the Sun-Times reports.
Listen to our new podcast Looped In: Chicago
Listen to WBBM Newsradio now on Audacy!
Sign up and follow WBBM Newsradio
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | TikTok