Two Chicago Public Schools students were shot and killed in the Loop Friday afternoon by masked attackers who drove up in two cars, according to police.
Robert Boston, 16 and Monterio Williams, 17, were shot around 12:25 p.m. near Washington Street and Wabash Avenue, just blocks from Millennium Park, police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office said. They were students at Innovations High School, a charter school at 17 N. State St.
Police said a dark-colored sedan and an SUV pulled up to a crowd, and masked gunmen got out and opened fire. Four of the attackers fled in a vehicle and two other people took off on foot, a source said.
The two who ran off went into a nearby Popeye’s and changed clothes in the bathroom, the source said.
At a news conference near the scene, Deputy Police Chief Jon Hein said the attackers confronted six students who were leaving Innovations. The victims were rushed to Northwestern Memorial Hospital and pronounced dead, said Hein, who was flanked by police officials and Chicago Public Schools Chief Safety and Security Officer Jadine Chou.
Hein, from the department’s Central Control Group, described the shooting as a “senseless act of violence” and said there’s no immediate public safety risk, though he noted the jacket of a woman who was walking in the area was grazed by a bullet.
He said no one was in custody, though a source said one person had been detained by police.
“At this time we believe it to be an isolated incident,” Hein said. “Whenever a tragedy like this strikes in the city, it’s heartbreaking for the families and everybody affected by it. It’s a tragedy no matter where it happens.”
He added: “Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of these two students.”
Community activist Andrew Holmes said both families are devastated and want to know who is responsible.
“Both mothers are extremely traumatized,” Holmes said. “They are trying to understand how and why this happened and who is behind it.”
Holmes said both teens — as well as their families — knew each other.
Monterio, who was only two weeks away from celebrating his 18th birthday, had plans to attend trade school after graduation, Holmes said.
“Whoever is responsible has no respect for human life,” he said.
With 443 students, Innovations is the largest of 17 privately run, publicly funded schools operated by the organization Youth Connection Charter School. It’s an alternative school that aims to re-enroll and re-engage children who may have dropped out or faced trouble in traditional schools.
‘I laid on the ground. I didn’t want to take a chance.’
Lights flashed from at least 10 police cruisers as officers worked a scene covered with at least 17 evidence markers. Police tape blocked off a large section of North Wabash Avenue near a Burlington Coat Factory and TJ Maxx. A sign on the door of a nearby Circle K convenience store said it was closed until further notice.
Mohammad Ashiq was at work nearby when he heard more than 10 gunshots and an employee warned him not to go outside. “I laid on the ground,” Ashiq said. “I didn’t want to take a chance.”
In the more than 40 years working in the area, he has seen thefts and other minor crimes but never a shooting. He said he hopes businesses closer to the scene have surveillance footage that could help investigators.
More than an hour after the shooting, he was still shaken up.
“My head, it’s so heavy,” he said. “I feel dizzy. I don’t want to take the car to go home. I’m going to have someone pick me up.”
Grace Bonilla was waiting to pick up her 15-year-old son from school at Muchin College Prep when she saw a blue car pull up and fire shots.
“I was right there, I saw it,” Bonilla said. “I know, I stood froze for a second, and then I ran back to my car.”
Around 2:15 p.m., Bonilla was still waiting for her son to be released from school, which remained on lockdown for another 15 minutes. Her son told her he was safe but scared.
“He wants to leave,” she said. “I just want to take him home.”
Bonilla, who lives in Humboldt Park, said she wants her son to transfer schools.
Shooting comes after spike in killings near schools
Shootings and homicides in the police department’s Central District, which covers a large part of downtown Chicago, dropped significantly last year, mirroring a citywide trend, according to police data.
Of the 617 homicides and 2,452 shootings recorded across the city last year, 17 slayings and 44 shootings happened in the district. But those key markers of violence had jumped in the district in recent years, including a 186% spike in homicides in 2022 and a 57% rise in shootings a year earlier.
This is the third shooting of a student outside a charter since the start of the school year and the latest in a series of attacks near Chicago schools the past few years.
A student was fatally shot earlier this week outside CICS Loomis-Longwood on the South Side minutes after police officers left the scene of a disturbance there. In November, a student at North Lawndale College Prep was shot on his morning walk to the West Side school.
Charters are privately run, publicly funded schools that are responsible for their own safety and security plans and procedures.
But the problem isn’t isolated to charters. An analysis by WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times showed a spike in fatal shootings near CPS schools in 2022, when nine children were killed on a weekday in the hours that students head home — between 2 p.m. and 4:49 p.m. That does not include a 17-year-old Kenwood Academy student killed while on his lunch break or a shooting outside Schurz High School that left a teenager critically hurt.
Those incidents included a shooting on school grounds in December 2022, when two boys were killed and two other teens wounded outside Benito Juarez Community Academy right after school was dismissed for the day. Prosecutors later charged a 16-year-old boy who had been kicked out of Juarez with first-degree murder in the shooting.
Schools citywide have tried to help students deescalate conflicts and heal from the severe trauma that gun violence causes. CPS said it offers support to charter schools after shooting incidents like Friday’s outside Innovations.
Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former CPS teacher, issued a statement Friday mourning the victims of Friday’s shooting.
“I extend my deepest condolences to their families and the Innovations High School community as they grapple with unimaginable pain and trauma caused by this senseless act of violence,” Johnson added.
‘What are their moms gonna say?’
The shooting happened near the Loop’s Jewelers Row. One vendor said he heard “at least 20 to 30 rounds” and saw people rushing down the street.
“It’s so sad,” said the vendor, who didn’t want to be named. “What are their moms gonna say?”
Another vendor added, “You don’t feel safe nowhere. It feels normalized when it shouldn’t be.”
Anyone with information about the shooting should call Area 3 detectives at 312-744-8261 or visit CPDTIP.com.
Contributing: Mohammad Samra, Cindy Hernandez
