April 21--D'Montre Smith was headed home with his girlfriend when shots echoed through his Washington Heights neighborhood and he collapsed with a wound to his chest.
The next thing neighbors heard was Smith's mother Karol screaming into the night, "Please help me, help me find my son."
Smith, 21, was found in the gangway next to his house in the 10200 block of South May Street. He was still alive and was rushed to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he died, according to police.
Smith had been standing outside his home around 10:15 p.m. Monday when a dark-colored sedan drove past and a gunman in the car fired shots, police said. No one was in custody.
Karol Smith said D'Montre was the youngest of her four sons and was studying to be an architect at Olive-Harvey College. She said he recently got a job at FedEx to help pay for school.
"He was a good child, trying to get education," Smith said in a phone interview early Tuesday.
She said she doesn't know why someone would shoot her son, who she said was not in a gang. D'Montre Smith had no gang affiliations, according to police.
"Whoever did this must be sick," she said.
Charles Watson, Smith's next-door neighbor, said he and his wife were in their living room watching news on TV when they heard six shots fired outside.
"It was so close," said Watson, 58. "I jumped away from the window and ran toward the door."
Watson said he and several neighbors found Smith lying in the gangway, his girlfriend by his side. Watson said he tried CPR but Smith was unresponsive.
Moments later, police and paramedics told Watson and others to move aside, and Smith was taken to the hospital, Watson said.
At the scene, officers blocked off two sections of May Street with yellow tape near the intersection with West 102nd Street. Detectives used flashlights to examine a dark-colored car parked on the street inside one of the taped-off crime scenes.
Watson, who has lived on the same block for over 23 years, said he has known Karol Smith, her son and other neighbors on his block for years.
"This is the first time anything like this happened on this block," he said. "I've raised my two daughters here. My grandkids come to visit all the time. ... We've never had anything like this before."
