9-year-old boy killed in shooting as teens fight outside Matteson home
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A shooting in south suburban Matteson has claimed the life of a 9-year-old boy.
Police have not released any details on what led to the shooting, and have only said the shooting happened Thursday night.
The victim's grandmother identified the boy as O'Mauri Jones Brown.
Denise Jones said her granddaughter got into a fight with another girl at school, and the other girl got some friends together and drove to Jones' house.
The girls started fighting outside the house, and then started walking back to their car, and as her granddaughter was walking back to the house, a teenage boy that was with the other girls pulled out a gun and started shooting.
"We just began to run," she said.
Jones said O'Mauri was not part of the fight. He wasn't even outside.
"He didn't do nothing. As soon as my son turned his back, the guy just began to shoot," she said. "The young man, he never said nothing while they was fighting. He never tried to break them up. He never intervened."
Jones described her grandson as "an awesome kid."
"Honor roll student ever since he been in school. Loved to dance. Had a great bond with his mom. Great bond with us. He was kind of homebound," she said.
Ironically, Jones said her grandson stayed with her when his mom moved to Chicago, because he thought it was safer in Matteson.
"So his mom moved out and he stayed here, because he didn't want to go to Chicago, because he was afraid of getting shot," she said.
O'Mauri was a student at Arcadia Elementary School in Olympia Fields
"The Matteson School District 162 family was saddened and shocked to learn that last evening a fight occurred among young people," District Superintendent Dr. Blondean Y. Davis said in a statement. "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."
"Today, the District assembled a crisis team of social workers, counselors and psychologists who were on-site at the school to speak with any student, teacher, staff member or parent who wished to do so. The team will be available again on Tuesday, May 30 when school resumes and as long as necessary," Davis added. "We will keep this beautiful young child, his family, classmates, friends and teachers in our hearts, thoughts and prayers."
Ashley Bland, whose 8-year-old son goes to Arcadia with O'Mauri, said she didn't know how to tell him when she found out O'Mauri had been killed.
"I just had to tell him, I'm like, 'Well, first of all I love you, and I will try to protect you from anything that's possible, that could possibly harm you, but your friend was accidentally shot. He was killed,'" she said. "He looked at me, asking like, 'are you for real?' He was like, 'are you playing?' And I'm like, 'I'm sorry.'"
Bland said it feels like a nightmare.
"Honestly, I saw him crumble in front of me, and I never saw him obviously in that type of pain, and I don't think he's ever experienced that type of pain. So to have that raw emotion, and to know you have to sit there and hurt your child like that, it's like … but it's life. Unfortunately, it's the life we live in," she said.
During a press conference, Village President Sheila Chalmers offers her condolences to the family of the 9-year-old.
"We're heartbroken, we're all in mourning. I give my full condolences to the family," she said. "Everything that happens to our children happens to me."
Matteson's Police Chief Michael Jones also confirmed that a 20-year-old victim walked into St. James Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and was also shot during the same incident.
Police are working with the boy's school to provide grief counselors for both the school and the district.
They're asking anyone with additional information to contact the Criminal Investigation Division at 708-503-3130.
