CHICAGO (WLS) — Two teens were shot, one fatally, Wednesday afternoon on Chicago’s South Side, Chicago police said.
Witnesses describe seeing students scattering as gunfire rang out after Hyde Park Academy let out of classes.
Eric Billups, 16, was on his way home, but instead was shot multiple times at a bus stop and taken here to the hospital, where he died.
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A 16-year-old girl and boy were at a bus stop in the 6300-block of South Stony Island Avenue in the city’s Woodlawn neighborhood just before 3:25 p.m., when a suspect approached, pulled out a gun and shot at them, police said.
The boy was shot multiple times and taken to University of Chicago Medical Center in critical condition. The boy later died, police said. His family identified the victim to ABC7 as Eric Billups.
The 16-year-old girl was shot in the left leg and taken to UChicago in fair condition, CPD said.
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“It’s more disbelief because he really didn’t deserve this,” the victim’s cousin Nikee Ford said. “I don’t think anybody deserves it, but he really didn’t. He was a baby. He had his whole life ahead of him.”
The end of classes for Billups soon marked the end of his young life.
“They just took a big piece of our family,” the victim’s cousin Ali Malone said.
The 16-year-old’s family gathered outside the emergency room at the University of Chicago Medical Center in heartache after the Hyde Park Academy sophomore student was shot and killed steps away from his high school.
The shooting happened outside a YMCA minutes after nearby Hyde Park Academy let out for the day.
Witnesses described seeing students scattering from outside the Side YMCA after multiple gunshots rang out.
“There go a book right there. One of them dropped their book,” said John Watts, who lives near the shooting scene.
A backpack was left behind, as well.
“When I heard the shots, I jumped up and looked out the window. All you saw was kids scattering,” Watts said. “You can see the two individuals, like, leaning against the gate. You knew something was wrong.”
A teacher’s assistant said the two were sophomores at Hyde Park Academy.
“They in the class. You see them everyday,” Clyde Caldwell said. “Could you imagine, you leave your child, your child leaves home in the morning, and you expect them to come back home and they not coming back home. So even though he was not my child, he was my child. Because when they come in that building, we love all of the students.”
The deadly gunfire Wednesday came in the wake of another tragedy that looms over the high school.
Just last month, Billups’ classmate, 18-year-old Lania Smith, was killed by a hit and run driver in Dolton.
Another Hyde Park high school student, 15-year-old Violet Harris, was killed while riding her scooter with friends near 77th and Exchange. Her mother also said the driver never stopped in that crash.
Billups’ family says he was one of three sons, now gone, as they grapple with their new reality without him.
“They don’t even know understand how they were just used to take somebody’s life, an innocent person’s life,” Ford said. “And, you got to live with that for the rest of your life.”
Police said the 16-year-old girl was listed at the hospital in fair condition with a gunshot wound to the leg. So far, police have not said if any arrests have been made.
Area One Detectives are investigating.
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