Nov. 13--Abylbek Yzabekov arrived from Kyrgyzstan just north of China nearly a year ago, hoping to earn enough money to go back home and get married and start a family.
Shortly after midnight Monday, he was headed back to his car with a $2 tip after delivering sandwiches when he noticed two men trying to rob a friend riding along for the night, according to police and the friend.
Yzabekov confronted them and there was gunfire, the police and the friend said.
"They began to shoot," said the friend, who did not want to be identified. "They just shot in his direction and my direction. I don't know why they shot. . .They didn't take anything.
"I was shocked, of course," he added. "I was crushed and I called 911. They arrived very quick."
The robbers sped off across a grass median in a tan Toyota or Honda, according to residents of the building in the 5400 block of East River Road. Yzabekov, 31, was taken to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge with a gunshot wound in the head. He died the next day.
Police had no detailed description of the robbers, except they were Asian or Hispanic and in their 20s. No one was in custody as of Thursday afternoon, according to Police News Affairs.
The friend said he and Yzabekov had grown up together in the same building in Kyrgyzstan. The friend's brother moved to the United States six years and urged Yzabekov to follow him.
"He came from his country to get a job," said the friend, who described himself as the closest thing Yzabekov had to family in the United States. "He had plans to get married. He was going to have children, and he wanted to find a good girl, a good wife.
"He was very hard-working, intelligent," he said. "A very easy-going person who was always ready to help anyone. . .I miss him, a lot of memories."
The friend said he was riding with Yzabekov over the weekend as he made deliveries for Mama Mia's Pizzeria on Cumberland Avenue. The friend was thinking of also working as a delivery driver, and Yzabekov let him come along.
"He wanted to show me how to work,'' he said.
Around 12:30 a.m., they pulled up to a building not far from where Yzabekov lived to deliver an order or sandwiches and pizza puffs. The friend said he stayed in the car to skype with his family as Yzabekov went inside.
Two men approached the car, the friend said. "They said it was a robbery. They said, 'Give me everything. But I didn't have anything,'' the friend said. "At that moment my friend got out of the building and they saw him."
The friend said he got out of the car and the robbers "stepped back" and one of them started shooting.
According to the police report, the robbers had followed Yzabekov and his friend to the building and "lay in wait" in their own car. When Yzabekov went upstairs to deliver the food, the two walked up and demanded the friend's money, cell phone and jewelry.
When came back outside, "the confrontation between offenders and victims escalated," the police report said. One of the robbers -- the shorter of the two -- fired three times, twice at Yzabekov and once at the friend, according to police.
"This is a surprise that he died in such a way,'' the friend said. "It's horrible. It's like dream for me. But it's reality.
"I don't know how I feel," he added. "Sometimes you get angry. I'm depressed. I cannot believe this happened to him because he was not like some people. He was not angry, he was very kind and pleasant. He was easy-going and he was always ready to help others."
