A Chicago Public Schools student was killed in a shooting Friday afternoon near Kenwood Academy High School in Hyde Park, marking another round of gunfire near a CPS building in the early weeks of the new semester.
Authorities identified the victim as 17-year-old Kanye Perkins, who lived in the neighborhood where he was slain about noon, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
The teen got into a fight with people in a car near the 1600 block of East 50th Place, and the driver chased him into a parking lot, Deputy Police Chief Ron Pontecore said at a news conference after the shooting.
Two people then got out of the car and started firing, Pontecore said.
Perkins was shot in the head. He died at the University of Chicago Medical Center, authorities said.
The boy was a CPS student at Kenwood Academy High School, a few blocks away from the shooting scene, Pontecore said.
“All of us at Chicago Public Schools are saddened to learn of the loss of another young life and we extend our heartfelt condolences to the family, friends, and community members impacted by this tragedy,” CPS officials wrote in a statement.
In an email to Kenwood families, Principal Karen Calloway called the teen “a member of the school community.”
When the school received reports of the nearby shooting, Calloway said she placed the building on a “soft” lockdown and canceled off-campus lunch.
Kenwood Academy’s football game scheduled for Friday night was postponed due to the attack.
It came less than three weeks after four teens were wounded in a drive-by shooting across the street from Schurz High School on the Northwest Side.
“Mothers don’t send our children to school to be murdered,” Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates said in a statement after the latest shooting. “Here we are again, about to bury another child, and offer condolences to another family and another school community ... It hurts, and our entire city deserves better.”
Campus police from the nearby University of Chicago said Perkins’ shooting appeared to be targeted. A gray Dodge Challenger with no license plates was seen fleeing the scene, university police said.
There was no one in custody.
Contributing: Michael O’Brien
