CHICAGO _ A 15-year-old boy was killed after being struck in the head by a bullet during a shooting that also wounded a 20-year-old man Monday night in the Roseland neighborhood on Chicago's Far South Side.
About 9 p.m., the two were traveling south in a white Jeep on South Lowe Avenue when a gunman inside a passing white pickup truck fired at them, according to Chicago police.
The boy, Jaykuan Rogers, was shot in the head multiple times, while the man was wounded in the back. They were both taken in critical condition to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where the 15-year-old died about 11:30 p.m., according to the Cook County medical examiner's office. He lived about half a mile north of where he was shot.
Police said the white Jeep was reported stolen earlier. A third person riding with them, Jaykuan's 17-year-old male cousin, was taken in for an interview, police said.
No arrests have been made, and a source said Jaykuan and the 20-year-old are not known to police.
The 15-year-old was among nine people shot within a four-hour span Monday night, which saw three separate bursts of gun violence in Roseland alone. Almost half the victims in those citywide shootings, including Jaykuan, were teens.
At the crime scene, the white Jeep sat on the street with its front passenger window almost completely shot out, save for a few glass shards sticking up at the bottom. The engine and headlines were still on.
The vehicle had crashed into a parked red sedan facing the opposite way and bearing a bullet hole underneath its driver's door handle. Shell casings were spread throughout the middle of the street and underneath the Jeep, where a pool of blood was invisible until an officer's roving flashlight lit up the bright red patch.
Almost two hours after the shooting, a trio of women walked toward the red crime tape, pausing at the sight of the crashed Jeep. One of them, Jaykuan's mother, asked, "Did they (the ambulance) take him already?" She breathed a sigh of relief when another woman nodded.
But after they asked officers for more information on the victims, one of the women said, "I heard they were both critical at Christ."
The 15-year-old's mother burst into fresh sobs. "He's in critical?" Soon after, they hopped in their car and drove off.
About a dozen officers were attempting to question neighbors on the block. At one point, they sprawled across the steps of three houses at the same time, waiting to knock on the doors of potential witnesses or owners of security cameras.
One neighbor, Dwayne Echols, said he was surprised by the gun violence on that block.
"This block straight," the 49-year-old said. "I've lived by here for 20 years. I've never seen this."
Echols recalled hearing about five gunshots while walking home from the bus stop after work. After reassuring his sister-in-law that he was not caught in the crossfire, he ventured out to the crime scene and reflected on how close he came to the bullets.
He pointed down the street as he explained his usual route home, which he didn't take Monday night because he decided to stop by McDonald's. "I'm so glad I took more time to get home. Imagine if I hadn't waited three or four minutes."
