Investigators used Chicago Public Schools surveillance video to identify a student charged in a shooting last year in Hyde Park that left a Simeon High School student dead, prosecutors say.
Amare Weatherspoon, 17, faces a first-degree murder charge in the Sept. 21, 2021, shooting of 15-year-old Kentrell McNeal that also wounded a 14-year-old, Cook County prosecutors said in court Wednesday.
That night, McNeal and four friends pulled into the parking area of a BP gas station at 5130 S. Lake Park Ave. in the Hyde Park neighborhood where they encountered Weatherspoon and two others walking through the lot, prosecutors said.
The two groups “exchanged looks” before Weatherspoon’s group walked across the street to a McDonald’s restaurant, prosecutors said.
As McNeal’s group drove away from the gas station shortly after, Weatherspoon allegedly fired multiple shots at their vehicle and ran away on foot.
McNeal was shot in the head and the 14-year-old in the leg. The driver of their car took them to a hospital, where McNeal was pronounced dead, prosecutors said.
McNeal was one of two Simeon students fatally wounded in separate shootings that day.
Prosecutors said the entire incident was recorded by surveillance cameras.
Earlier in the day, surveillance cameras inside Kenwood Academy High School recorded Weatherspoon wearing the same clothing and backpack as the person seen on video of the shooting, according to prosecutors. Multiple people were able to identify Weatherspoon as the alleged gunman after viewing the footage.
A warrant was issued for Weatherspoon’s arrest several days later, court records show. Prosecutors did not say why it took authorities more than a year to bring Weatherspoon to court on the charges.
A pair of private defense attorneys for Weatherspoon on Wednesday said their client’s family only recently learned he was wanted in connection with the shooting and said they arranged for Weatherspoon to surrender to Chicago police on Tuesday.
Weatherspoon has no other criminal background and was unlikely to be a flight risk, his attorneys argued. His family could afford to post as much as $50,000 for his bond to ensure his future appearances in court, they said.
Judge Kelly McCarthy ordered Weatherspoon held without bail and set his next court appearance for Nov. 1.
