CHICAGO _ The fieldhouse at Garfield Park was packed with young teens as freshmen boys and sophomore girls played championship games in a local basketball league Thursday night.
A fight broke out, then another and soon police started clearing the crowd. That's when the shooting started and everyone ran, according to Chicago police and witnesses.
Kenwon Parker didn't get far. The 15-year-old student at Marshall High School was shot in the chest and fell to the ground in the West Side park. His friend Kimmy stopped, knelt down and tried to talk to him. "He got hit," she said. "He was trying to breathe."
Parker died at Stroger Hospital, less than two days from his 16th birthday. A 14-year-old boy was taken there in serious condition with a gunshot wound in the abdomen. His family said he was expected to recover.
Police arrested another boy, 13, but his role in the shooting was not clear, according to police. A source said he was carrying a gun.
The Chicago Park District has been hosting league games at the fieldhouse for nearly 30 years, drawing teens away from the streets in what is historically the most violent part of Chicago.
"It's a mainstay program," said Michele Lemons, a park district spokeswoman. "It's the culmination of the summer season."
It's not clear how or why the fights broke out, but police checked with the three security guards at the fieldhouse and decided to end the tournament and clear the gym, according to chief Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi.
Parker and the 14-year-old had both been at the tournament and were hit by gunfire when the fights spilled outside the gym, police said.
Parker had told his family that he was going out to play basketball. "I said, OK, I love you, be safe out there," said his aunt, Markeshay Westbrooks.
While she talked outside the family's West Side home, the boy's mother cried out, "My baby's gone and he ain't returning to me, he ain't returning to me."
Parker was her only son, relatives said.
He had just gotten a car and was looking forward to his 16th birthday Saturday. "He was super excited about that," said a cousin, who did not want to be identified. "It was his first car."
Friends of the 14-year-old said he is a freshman at Christ the King High School and went to the fieldhouse with a friend. He was doing "fine" and was expected to be released from the hospital in a few days.
"He's blessed," said his mother, Petrice Sanderson.
A friend said she was "scared" for the boy. "He's just trying to live his life," she said. "I'm scared for him. It's dangerous outside. It just hurts."
Neighbors around the park shared her worry.
Nyerere Logan was walking his 2-year-old daughter in her stroller nearby when he heard the gunshots. He saw teens flee as patrol cars rolled in, one by one.
"You can't even walk your child out here," Logan said, frustrated.
His daughter, wearing pink hair clips and a rainbow-striped dress, squirmed in her stroller while her father watched police search the street for shell casings.
"Kids are dying for no reason," Logan said. "You got to be in a richer neighborhood for something to happen? We all people."
