18-year-old shot dead on Southwest Side had just returned home after spending day shopping with mother

An 18-year-old was shot and killed over the weekend in West Elsdon on the Southwest Side had just returned home after a day spent with their mother.

Azul De La Garza was sitting in a parked car in the 5400 block of South Avers Avenue when someone approached and fired shots around 8:30 p.m. Saturday, Chicago police said

De La Garza was pronounced dead at Mount Sinai Hospital, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

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“It’s hard to put it in words the loss we’re feeling — for someone to take away my 18-year-old warrior princess,” the father Jose De La Gaza told reporters Sunday.

Azul De La Garza had spent the day with their mother and had just bought a halloween costume, sister Isabel de la Garza said.

Azul De La Garza had recently graduated from Solorio Academy, where they wrestled and won second place in a state tournament, the father said. They had a scholarship to attend the School of the Art Institute of Chicago this fall.

Azul De La Garza was “just doing everything the best way we taught her,” the father said.

Azul De La Garza used they/them pronouns and spent the summer organizing for the Gage Park Latinx Council, the group said in a post on social media.

“They were a shinning star full of love and life with limitless potential and hope,” the group wrote on Facebook.

De La Garza was one of at least nine people killed in weekend gun violence in Chicago.

An online fundraiser is collecting money for De La Garza’s family.