Authorities in Illinois are investigating after a 9-year-old boy was killed Thursday during an altercation, according to reports.
Police said officers responded to a 911 call around 6 p.m. Thursday in the 800 block of Campus Avenue in Matteson. The caller, Denise Jones, said her 9-year-old grandson O’Mauri Jones Brown had been shot.
“We heard the shots. It was a lot of shots. We all ran back and O’Mauri was right there under the stairs,” Jones said. “He screamed and screamed so loud. He said ‘Grandma help me.’ It just hurt me because I could help everyone else and at this moment I couldn’t help him.”
First responders arrived on scene and began life-savings measures on the boy.
He was taken to the hospital where he died from a gunshot wound to the abdomen, according to police.
Police said a 20-year-old was also shot in the incident and suffered a non-life-threatening gunshot wound.
Officials say a preliminary investigation suggests the shooting occurred during an altercation between two people at a home. Police believe it started with a physical altercation between two juveniles which then escalated to the shooting.
Jones said her granddaughter had a fight with a girl she went to school with.
O’Mauri is being remembered as an intelligent boy who aspired to be a professional basketball player.
Dr. Blondean Y. Davis, superintendent of Matteson School District 162, released a statement later Friday afternoon that said, “The Matteson School District 162 family was saddened and shocked to learn that last evening a fight occurred among young people in a nearby suburb. The participants took the fight to a neighborhood in Matteson and a nine-year-old young boy, a third-grader at the Arcadia Elementary School in Olympia Fields, was shot and subsequently died. … We will keep this beautiful young child, his family, classmates, friends and teachers in our hearts, thoughts and prayers.”
Davis’s statement also said social workers, counselors and psychologists were at the school Friday and will be available again on Tuesday and will remain there “as long as necessary.”
Anyone with information on the case is asked to contact Matteson Police at 708-503-3130.
No other information has been provided at this time.
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