They thought he was trying to warn other people they wanted to shoot. Poor little Antonio had no gang ties, but that didn’t matter.
Via NYDN:
Gang members in Chicago’s South Side shot a 9-year-old boy out walking in his neighborhood last month because they thought he was trying to warn rival gangbangers about their whereabouts, police said.
The four men — Jabari Williams, 22, Michael D. Baker, Paris Denard and Derrick Allmon, all 19 — were out looking to shoot rival gangsters on Aug. 20 when they encountered 9-year-old Antonio Smith Jr. in a yard near his Grand Crossing home, police said, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Allmon, who was armed and stalking two rivals, thought the boy was yelling out to warn his targets when he cut down the boy in a hail of bullets and left him lying next to a concrete slab in the back of a stranger’s yard on E. 71 St., police said.
Police found the third-grader’s bloodied body a short time later and rushed him to a local children’s hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
After a monthlong investigation, cops caught up to the killer and his accomplices last week.
Accused killers:
