CHICAGO — Two 14-year-old boys were seen trying to steal a car moments before someone shot them dead on the South Side yesterday afternoon.
Chicago police said the boys were found with gunshot wounds in an alley behind the 800 block of East 89th Place around 2:27 p.m. Both were pronounced dead at the scene.
Moments earlier, someone called 911 to report that four people were trying to steal a car in an alley behind the same block, according to CPD dispatch records.
That call was followed by reports of shots fired and a person lying unconscious in the alley. First responders found the second boy lying under a vehicle. Both had suffered gunshot wounds to their heads.
Witnesses told police that four young males had been trying to steal a gray Hyundai, the two who were killed and two others who ran away.
A man who claimed to be the vehicle’s owner also spoke with the police. He told them the boys walked away when he came outside, an officer said. Police later determined that the vehicle was registered to someone else who lives at the same address.
CPD did not mention the auto theft in its brief media statement about the shootings. The department did say that no one was in custody as of Sunday afternoon.
Some Hyundai and Kia vehicles have design flaws that allow thieves to steal the cars by using a USB plug as an ignition key. While the automakers have rolled out software updates that they claim will correct the issue, the cars continue to be widely stolen.
Last month, a Chicago man was killed when he interrupted two so-called “Kia Boys” as they tried to steal a Hyundai in the 700 block of North Loomis. No arrests have been made in that case.
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