7-year-old boy killed when someone fires through window of home in Humboldt Park: ‘Now he’s an angel’

Akeem Briscoe was washing his hands for dinner Wednesday night when a bullet fired from the alley behind his home came through the window and killed the 7-year-old.

“He just loved going and playing with the kids, doing different things,” the boy’s uncle Terribia Misters said.”He had a dog he called Angel, now he’s an angel himself.”

Akeem was in the bathroom when he was shot in the abdomen around 8:20 p.m. in the 2600 block of West Potomac Avenue in Humboldt Park,Chicago police said. He was taken to Stroger Hospital, where he died hours later.

Investigators found several shell casings in the alley, according to Deputy Police Chief Ron Pontecore.Police don’t believe anyone in the home was the intended target, he told reporters Wednesday night, but it was not known what sparked the gunfire.

He said detectives were looking at private security video footage. No one was reported in custody.

“When it’s a young child like this, an innocent child, it’s entirely tragic,” Pontecore said. Asked what he would tell the shooter, the deputy chief replied, “Own up to what you did, we have a very distraught mother.”

A neighbor who lives across the street said she heard the shots. It sounded like a “back and forth kind of thing,” she said, and she counted between 10 to 12 shots in all.

“I have a bad habit of counting when I hear noises like that,” said the neighbor, who did not want to be identified. “It’s different. It’s not like it’s a balloon popping.”

The woman came outside after the shooting and heard a woman crying for help before police arrived.

To herself, the woman said: “Please, not another kid.”

Jessie Fuentes, director of the violence prevention and strategic intervention unit for the Puerto Rican Cultural Center came to the house on Thursday morning with a team of colleagues who respond to violence in the neighborhood.

“You want to make sure the family has everything they need,” she said.

The group helps families financially, tries to ensure that there are no retaliatory shootings and, in this case, helps families find a temporary place to stay.

Misters said the family is reeling from the loss, which occurred just days after the boy’s father died from health issues.

“My sister is super grieving,” he said. “Her husband died, now her son. It’s not fair to her,” he said.

His sister called him after the shooting, and he rushed to the home from his dishwashing job at a University of Chicago dining hall. Most nights, he said, he stays at the Humboldt Park home.

The uncle recalled his last conversation with the second-grader had been about homework and a field trip coming up on Thursday. His mom had his lunch all packed.

“He asked me, ‘Uncle Tibbs, you should come with me,” Misters said. “He was so excited to go and now he’ll never get to.”

“Life is short. He’s gone so early.”

Akeem’s mother and older brother and sister were in the home at the time, Misters said. “They had to see their little brother get shot. On his way to the hospital, he said, ‘I’m OK.’

At least 12 children 13 years of age and younger have been killed in Chicago this year, according to data kept by the Sun-Times.

“Life is not fair,” Misters said. “Innocent kids shouldn’t be getting killed.”

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