Chicago, IL – A Facebook fight over a boy led a 14-year-old to shoot and kill another 14-year-old on Monday afternoon.
Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy confirmed that murder charges had been filed against a suspect who used a .38-caliber handgun used to kill Endia Martin earlier this week. The gun had been stolen from a car earlier in April, and was brought to the scene of the crime by a person who knew the suspect and was expecting a fight to break out between the two teens.
“What would have been, under any other circumstance, probably a fistfight between 14-year-old girls, because they were fighting over a boy, turned into a murder,” McCarthy said. “You introduce a firearm and you have a murder.”
The girl was charged as a juvenile with murder. Her 24-year-old uncle and a 17-year-old boy also face charges related to the killing.
“It appears that the two individuals we have in custody brought the gun to the scene – may have brought the gun to the scene – and were trying to discard the gun afterwards,” McCarthy continued.
Martin’s family said that the fight between the two girls started over Facebook, but McCarthy did not confirm whether this was the case.
“Whether or not it was over social media, we haven’t been able to prove at this point,” McCarthy said. “And at the end of the day, I’m not sure it’s that relevant. What’s relevant is that there was a firearm introduced into a fistfight.”
He instead criticized Illinois gun laws, which allow a gun to be stored in a vehicle. He called vehicular storage “absolutely insane,” and said that legally owned guns should be kept in safes or on the owner’s person.
Martin’s stepfather Kent Kennedy called the murder “senseless,” adding that “Kids are dying so young nowadays. It’s senseless. Parents shouldn’t have to bury no child.”
“No child needs to be gunned down like a dog in the street. Nobody, period,” he continued.
“This is not going to go away,” he went on, addressing those culpable in the murder of his stepdaughter. “We are not going to rest until you are prosecuted to the fullest. You, the people who assisted you, the crowd that walked over with the person with the gun – you’re all involved and you’re all guilty.”
According to a Chicago Tribune analysis, 50 children 16 or younger have been shot and killed in Chicago this year.
Social News Daily follows stories in which social media contributes to an individual’s injury or death in the real world. Check out “101 Ways To Die From Social Media [Part 1]” here.
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