Two men ‘looking for someone to shoot’ charged with seriously wounding 12-year-old boy on Near West Side

Two men “looking for someone to shoot” have been charged with seriously wounding a 12-year-old boy as he walked with other kids from a store on the Near West Side earlier this week.

Isaiah M. Renteria, 22, and Pedro Molina, 23, have both been charged with first-degree attempted murder. Renteria also has been charged with fleeing police.

The two had been circling the 1800 block of West 21st Place in a black Dodge Charger before the attack Tuesday night, according to Chief of Detectives Brendan Deenihan.

“Looks like bad guys looking for someone to shoot,” Deenihan said at a news conference Friday at police headquarters.

The boy was with two other 12-year-olds and some relatives walking back to a family party when shots were fired from an alley, he said. The boy was hit in the temple and remains in “extremely critical” condition.

The Charger sped off and a police helicopter tracked it down the Stevenson Expressway and to Hinsdale, where police officers placed spike strips on the road to disable the car.

The Charger finally stopped in LaGrange. Molina was sitting in the back seat of the car and was taken into custody. Tests found gun residue on him, a police report said. Renteria was behind the wheel.

Deenihan said none of the family members with the children have gang affiliations, and investigators do not believe Molina or Renteria recognized anyone in the group.

“I think we probably talk about the offenders too much, and you just have a victim and a family here who’s suffering,” Deenihan said. “They’re happy, once again, that these people are removed from the street at this time so they can’t harm anybody else, but I really think their main focus is on their 12-year-old.”