(RepublicanNews.org) – 9-year-old Ulysses Campos is dead after being shot on July 8th in the Chicago area while attending his grandmother’s birthday party. The incident reportedly unfolded at 10:15 pm while he was playing outside in the suburban area of Franklin Park.
Police said that prior to the shooting, Campos was with a group of boys playing basketball. As they were playing in the alley, a car drove by without stopping and fired between four and six shots. Campos was struck in the chest and was pronounced dead after being transported to an area hospital.
Local media reported that Franklin Park police found the vehicle the shots came from not long after in Leyden Township. After finding the car police said they took a person of interest into custody.
They later charged Javier Murillo, 37, with first-degree murder. A press release from the Franklin PD says that Murillo will face a judge for his bond hearing in the next few days. Police have not said what his motive was.
A resident near the crime said that the incident was atypical for the Franklin Park area. They said it was “odd to hear” of violence in their neighborhood and referred to the area as a “quiet community.”
Campos was the only child struck by the shots and his uncle told Chicago’s CBS affiliate that the act was random. Ottilo Campos insisted that his nephew was not targeted. He was among 18 shooting victims in the Chicago area during the weekend of July 7th-9. His tenth birthday was only two weeks away.
Chicago has some of the nation’s strictest gun laws in addition to having one of the highest crime rates. One study showed that residents of Chicago’s south side had a 1 in 13 chance of becoming a victim of crime.
In May, the Supreme Court said that Illinois could keep in place a ban on certain semiautomatic weapons and high-capacity magazines.
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