Fourteen-year-old Demarco Webster Jr. was killed by a stray bullet early Saturday while helping his father move in the South Austin neighborhood on the West Side.
Demarco, an eighth-grade honor student at Jensen Scholastic Academy, was helping his father put items in his car about 1:23 a.m. in the 500 block of South Central, authorities said.
A dark-colored car then drove past and someone inside shot him in the torso, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office. Demarco was not believed to have been the intended target.
Demarco, who turned 14 just two weeks ago on Oct. 17, was taken to Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, where he died at 3:15 a.m., according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office. He lived in the 700 block of South Kedzie.
Cook County Commissioner Boykin, in a Facebook post, blamed the boy’s death on what he called inaction by community leaders to address gun violence.
“The communities most heavily impacted by gun violence in the City of Chicago are nothing short of war zones, and just as in the other war-torn regions of the world, our children are not safe. Demarco Webster, a 14-year-old boy, was helping his father move out of his apartment in South Austin this past weekend when he was struck dead by a stray bullet,” Boykin wrote.
“The blood of Demarco and all the innocent children cut down by violence in Chicago cries out for justice. Every day that our City, County, State and Federal leaders fail to take emergency action on this crisis, people die.”
—Homicide Watch Chicago and Chicago Sun-Times Wire