Update June 3, 2021 — Ald. Michele Smith today said the victim is not the only person who’s refusing to cooperate with investigators.
“Several of our neighbors who witnessed the incident refused to cooperate with the police,” Smith said in a follow-up email to her constituents. Because of their unwillingness to help, the state’s attorney was unable to bring charges for the actual shooting, Smith said.
“We strongly believe that providing information when a citizen witnesses a crime is a duty of a citizen, and hope that our neighbors reconsider,” the alderman concluded.
The 17-year-old boy who was shot outside Lincoln Park High School on Tuesday evening is not cooperating with police investigators, Ald. Michele Smith (43rd) said in an email to her constituents Wednesday afternoon.
While prosecutors have not yet charged anyone with shooting the teen, another 17-year-old boy arrested after the incident is charged with possession of a firearm with a defaced serial number and aggravated unlawful use of a weapon, CPD Sgt. Rocco Alioto said.
The teen who is charged was among three people that police took into custody on the Armitage Brown Line platform after CPD camera operators saw a group that matched descriptions of persons wanted for the shooting enter the CTA station around 7:40 p.m.
Police said the victim was near the school’s parking lot on the 2000 block of North Burling when he heard gunfire and realized he’d been hit around 7:30 p.m. Witnesses flagged down police, who quickly broadcast descriptions of three suspects seen running through Oz Park after the shooting.
Smith encouraged anyone who has video of the shooting to give it to police.
Meanwhile, you’d never know someone was shot Tuesday by reading the email Lincoln Park High School Principal Eric Steinmiller sent to the school’s community on Wednesday afternoon. Rather, Steinmiller said only “there were shots fired in the vicinity of two of our school buildings.”
Cops found five shell casings in an area that they described as the Lincoln Park High School “courtyard.” Steinmiller’s email confirmed that the shooting took place “on school grounds.”
Steinmiller said he requested “extra security in the immediate vicinity of our school” and offered support for any student who has been affected by the incident.
Police said the victim, who suffered a graze wound to his arm, sought treatment at Illinois Masonic Medical Center. Area Three detectives are investigating.
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