Another Chicago mom is left heartbroken after her 13-year-old son was found dead some four blocks from his home at Marquette Park, where he often chilled with friends, the Chicago Tribune reports.
"Why? Why would they do this? It's senseless," Demureye Macon's mother, Tawana Macon, said, according to the Tribune. "Quit doing this to these kids. They babies.”
Macon saw the tragedies occurring around her but never thought she would end up involved in one. "Every time I see somebody's child hurt, I pray for them," the grief-stricken mom said. "I never thought I'd be praying for myself."
According to the Tribune, Demureye was shot around 8:35 p.m. Sunday night. He was pronounced dead at the scene, and there is no one currently in custody.
Friends and family told the newspaper that Demureye was hanging out in the park with friends when an unknown assailant shot and killed him. A group of unidentified people allegedly came out of an alley and asked the boy if he was connected with a gang. The Fairfield Elementary Academy seventh-grader allegedly tried to run. He was struck in the chest.
"My baby wasn't in no gang," Macon told the Tribune. The boy, whom his mother described as tall for his age and often mistaken for being older, was the oldest of four siblings.
Macon said that she tried to protect her children after the neighborhood started to get rough, trying to keep them inside and asking for their exact whereabouts if they did venture out. "It's so bad out here now, I'd find the littlest thing to put him on punishment [so] he won't be out here," Macon said. "Just to keep him in the house."
Read more at the Chicago Tribune.