Seven-year-old Jeremiah Moore was asleep in a car seat in his family’s van early Tuesday when he was shot to death by someone in another car, just blocks from his home in East Chicago, Indiana, according to his relatives.
A bullet struck Moore in the back of the head, according to his uncle, Damieon Bey, who rushed to St. Catherine Hospital after he heard about the attack.
The shooting occurred about 1:15 a.m. in the area of Pennsylvania and Block avenues in East Chicago, police said. The child was pronounced dead about 1:30 a.m. at the hospital, according to the Lake County coroner’s office.
“He was a wonderful kid. [He] loved Fortnite, loved his PlayStation 5, loved to play video games with his father,” Bey said. “He was with Communities United and they were just downtown a month, maybe two months ago, protesting against kids being killed by gun violence.
“He loved school, loved sports, loved football,” Bey said, adding that Moore was “the best of friends” with his 10-year-old brother, Eli. “[He was] just an all-around good 7-year-old kid who didn’t get a chance at life because someone took his life for no reason.”
Moore’s family — his parents, as well as three other children, including Moore’s 15-year-old cousin, who carried him inside the hospital — were on their way home from visiting the children’s grandmother in Chicago.
They stopped for gas at the corner of East Columbus Drive and Pulaski Street, where they had noticed a red Dodge Charger with tinted windows but thought nothing of it, Bey said.
The family drove north on Pulaski Street toward their home and turned left onto Guthrie Street. When they got to the corner of Main and Guthrie, the red Charger cut them off and someone fired at the van, Bey said.
“They said they were grabbing the kids in the back, trying to get them to duck, and they were ducking, and when they turned around, they’d seen that Jeremiah — we call him Stink Dog — had been shot in the back of the head,” Bey said.
The red Charger drove away and police said no one was arrested.
Moore’s family hurried to a nearby fire station and pounded on doors to no answer, so they drove to St. Catherine Hospital, Bey said.
“They’re just really distraught, they’re heartbroken,” Bey said of Moore’s family. “They (Moore’s mother and father) just don’t understand what happened. All they keep asking me is, ‘What did we do? We didn’t do anything. Why?’ They’re destroyed.”
Moore’s mother, Ollie Holliness, is pregnant and had complications after the shooting. She was taken to an emergency room, where she stayed for about five hours because medical staff were worried “she might lose the baby or go into early labor,” Bey said.
East Chicago police said officers located “a firearm, spent shell casings, blood splatter and a 30-round magazine” inside the van. Bey said the mother possesses a valid concealed carry license.
The coroner’s office said no further updates were available Wednesday. East Chicago police could not immediately be reached for comment.
