A 17-year-old boy shot and killed Monday evening in the Old Irving Park neighborhood was a junior at Northside College Prep, family and school officials said.
Emanuel Gallegos was on his way to a friend’s house to get his hair cut Monday when he was shot, said his father, Esteban Gallegos.
The father said he couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to harm his son.
“He never had any problems with nobody,” Gallegos told the Chicago Sun-Times Tuesday.
Emanuel Gallegos, one of four siblings, grew up in the city, said his father, who was born in Mexico.
The teen was in a vehicle westbound in the 4400 block of West Addison Street at the time of the shooting. At 5:36 p.m., a male standing on a corner near Schurz High School, a Chicago Public Schools high school located at 3601 N. Milwaukee, fired shots into the car. The shooter was with two other males when he opened fire, Chicago police said.
Gallegos was struck in the neck and rushed to Illinois Masonic Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead, the police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office said. Gallegos lived in Belmont Cragin.
“Emanuel was an important and beloved member of our school,” said North Side College Prep Principal Kelly Mest in a letter to parents and guardians.
Martin Guzman, Gallegos’ longtime friend, started a GoFundMe campaign Tuesday to raise $5,000 to pay for funeral expenses and a reward for information about the teen’s killing. In just 6 hours, the campaign had already amassed $8,055 in donations.
In the post, Guzman referred to his friend’s death as “another senseless killing.”
“This gunman took a beautiful life,” wrote Guzman, who called Gallegos “one of the most loving and heartwarming kids I have ever known.”
“I remember a few weeks ago, we got hit with many inches of snow – there he was outside shoveling snow with his younger brother,” Guzman recalled.
Area North detectives are conducting a homicide investigation.
