Deon Gilbert, 15, shot in South Deering

CHICAGO (WLS) -- A Chicago mother is in mourning after her 15-year-old son was fatally shot while visiting a friend just before 11 p.m. Friday night in the South Deering neighborhood.

Deon Gilbert's mother, Ida Hall, said he was a good student who got mostly A's and B's, played football and hoped to go onto college.

Police are still looking for suspects in the shooting. While Hall said her son was not involved in gangs, she also said she believes that this may all go back to a fight that he was involved with outside of school a couple of weeks ago.

Hall says Gilbert, who was spending the night with a friend, was walking to a gas station late Friday when he was killed in what appears to have been a drive-by shooting.

The youngest of four siblings, Gilbert was the baby of the family.

"You can't watch them 24/7," Hall said. "You feel they're going to be safe going from one corner to the next corner, but they're not safe."

Police say Gilbert and his friend were walking past Trumbull Park near 104th Street and Bensley when a dark-colored van pulled up to them. The driver fired the shots, two of which struck the teenager in the stomach. Gilbert was rushed to Comer Children's Hospital, but died on the operating table. Both investigators and his mother say, the teen, who was a sophomore at Butler College Prep, was not a gang member.

"The pastors were up at the hospital," said Hall. "His school teachers were up at the hospital, Deon was on the football team. Deon was looking to go to Texas A and M when he graduated from high school and he wanted to be an architect."

Meanwhile, those who live in the vicinity of the park say the neighborhood is a troubled one.

"There is a lot of shooting stuff around here," area resident Martha Caldwell said. "It was real, real bad when I first moved over here. It calmed down a little bit, but they still do what they do."

Police will only say that this is still an ongoing investigation.