CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- A boy who had just celebrated his 15th birthday has died after he and a 14-year-old were shot in Hyde Park on the South Side Tuesday night.
Kentrell McNeal was the second 15-year-old Simeon High School student killed in gun violence in Chicago Tuesday. McNeal was pronounced dead at 9:33 a.m. Wednesday.
Police said McNeal and the 14-year-old boy were attacked while sitting in a car around 6:30 p.m. in the 5200 block of South Lake Park Avenue.
The younger boy was struck in the leg and transported to Comer Children’s Hospital in critical condition, police said.
McNeal suffered a gunshot wound to the head and was taken to Provident Hospital, police said. He was transferred to Comer.
Tuesday evening, friends and family trickled in and out of the hospital, most on their phones notifying others of the shooting.
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McNeal was part of the nonprofit youth group Good Kids Mad City, according to the group’s executive director Carlil Pittman.
“Lately I had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with Kentrell,” Pittman wrote on Twitter. “This is why it’s so important to have creative spaces and outlets for young people to be able to go to, because there’s nothing on the streets of Chicago for them already. RIP.”
About four hours earlier, a 15-year-old boy was fatally shot near Simeon High School on the South Side where he was a student.
Jamari Williams was shot around 2:40 p.m. by someone in a black car outside a business in the 8300 block of South Holland Road, police said. He was hit in the chest and taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
No one was in custody in either shooting.
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