A south suburban community is mourning the death of a high school basketball player in recent days. <\/p>\n
16-year-old Davell Holden was shot and killed over the weekend in South Holland, and now there\u2019s a $10,000 reward to find his killer.<\/p>\n
His mom told NBC Chicago he had a passion for basketball. He started playing in the 7th grade.<\/p>\n
\u201cDavell was a true athlete,\u201d said Angela Birts. \u201cHe poured love into everyone not just his family, but his friends, his teachers, his coaches, anybody who came in contact with my son. That\u2019s why it\u2019s just so devastating that this had to happen to my son.\u201d<\/p>\n
Birts described her son as an outstanding young man with a bright future, who loved his family and younger brother. He played basketball for Thornwood High School and would have started his junior year next week. But over the weekend, Birts said he asked her if he could go over to a friend\u2019s house, and he never made it back.<\/p>\n
\u201cI let him go and then I checked his location to make sure that he made it and I noticed that he made it and then not too long after I got a tragic phone call that my son was shot,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Police said the call came in Saturday after 7 p.m. The teen was found gunned down in the front yard of a home near 160th Place and Drexel Avenue in South Holland. <\/p>\n
Neighbors told NBC Chicago off camera they heard gunshots, saw the teen lying in the grass with several teens trying to revive him. \u201cThis is a tragedy that happened, something my son did not deserve this, and I pray that we could get justice for my son because he does deserve that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
His friends, classmates, and teammates are now coping with his death, and looking back on the memories they shared on and off the court.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was always a wiling listener,\u201d said Kay\u2019Shaun Thomas, victim\u2019s best friend. \u201cHe\u2019s a student in everything he does he wants to learn before anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thomas said the two were best friends and played together on the same team.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe did display his urgency to want to play overseas when he was done with college,\u201d he said. \u201cHe wants to play overseas basketball in a different country.\u201d<\/p>\n
Birts is now relying on her faith and leaning on support from family and friends to get through this difficult time. She said her son was her world. She wants the killer brought to justice.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey took a huge piece of me away from me and he didn\u2019t deserve it, and I hope they have some remorse and realize that the person that they took from everyone did not deserved it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Police are still investigating a motive for the shooting. The Village of South Holland along with St. Sabina Church are offering a $10,000 reward to anyone with information leading to an arrest in the case.<\/p>\n
If you have any information that could help with the investigation, you\u2019re asked to call South Holland Police at 708-331-3131 EXT 2 or St. Sabina Church at 773-483-4300.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A south suburban community is mourning the death of a high school basketball player in recent days. 16-year-old…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49110,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,41763,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-49109","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-cook-county","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}