CHICAGO _ Zack Stoner's YouTube subscribers grew when he posted videos of opposing rap artists who talked "beef" about each other, his friends say.
But as Stoner's 8-year-old channel topped more than 176,000 subscribers in the past six months, he decided to focus on a positive, anti-violence message for Chicago.
Stoner's YouTube channel, zacktv1, hosted hundreds of videos featuring music and interviews, most highlighting young talent in the city.
Early Wednesday, he was taking in a show at Refuge Live and posted an Instagram video of artists rapping under blue and purple lights.
Half an hour later, he lay dying three blocks away, shot in the head by someone in a passing car.
"I just felt like it was just unreal," said Stoner's friend Demetrius Nash, 40, a local activist. "They killed the potential of a young man, again. He hadn't lived his best life yet. He was just beginning to understand the power of his platform and the influence he personally had on the city."
Police say Stoner, 30, was shot around 1:30 a.m. in the South Loop. He had been driving down Clark Street when someone in another car fired at him, hitting him in the head and neck. He was pronounced dead at 4:20 a.m. at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
A video taken by a resident from an apartment above the scene captured the moments after the shooting: Two crashed cars stopped on the street and a third car nearby with the engine running.
"Let's go," a man yells as three people run from one of the crashed cars to the third car, which drives away. A taxi passes the fleeing car before backing up and stopping at the scene.
Inside a nearby bar, Danny Friedman saw the three cars converge on Clark, which was otherwise empty. People exited the cars and looked like they may fight.
Uneasy, the bar manager said he turned back to tend to the five or six regulars still in the bar when he heard gunshots. Friedman ran to the door and dead-bolted it as the bar's patrons dropped to the ground.
He saw a man walking by holding a handgun. "It was just adrenaline," Friedman said.
Around the corner, Travis Finley was working in a Subway shop when a woman rushed in and said she had just heard gunshots. Finley didn't believe her. Then he heard them.
The 21-year-old South Side native who studies animation at Columbia College told the woman to stay inside the shop while he went outside to take a look.
He saw a man run by with blood on his shirt. He heard a woman scream, "No, no, no."
Police reported no one in custody Wednesday afternoon and released few details.
"I don't know if they was personally shooting at him, or if it was somebody he was with," his friend, Phor Robinson said. "I don't know what it was. All I know is my friend is gone."
Nash said Stoner lost friends through murder or jail over the years and it took a toll on him. He started "looking at life differently. He wanted to be part of the solution, not part of the problem." This translated into the types of videos he put up on his channel and the topics he chose to talk about.
Stoner "was our street reporter," Nash said.
On his Twitter account, Stoner described himself as "the Best Interviewer in the world. I've been to some of the most dangerous hoods in America with faith in God and a Camera."
For Stoner's life to be taken by the violence he tried to combat, Nash said, shows that "hurt people continue to hurt people."
