Brothers killed, teen injured in shootings along Ashland Avenue minutes apart: CPD
Mother mourns sons Johnathan and Benjamin O'Neal, brothers killed in alley behind their Ravenswood home
CHICAGO (WLS) -- There were two drive-by shootings on the North Side Wednesday night, Chicago police said.
A boy and a man, brothers, were killed in the 4800-block of North Ashland Avenue about 10 p.m., and, less than a mile away, a boy was hurt when he was shot in the 4300-block of North Ashland.
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CPD initially said the 20-year-old and 17-year-old from the Ravenswood shooting were taken to Illinois Masonic Medical Center in critical condition, but they did not survive.
CPD said the victims were standing in an alley when someone in a light-colored sedan started shooting. Both were shot multiple times.
The Cook County Medical Examiner's office identified the 17-year-old as Johnathan H. O'Neal and the 20-year-old as Benjamin I. O'Neal.
Both lived on the same block where they were gunned down, the office said.
"They wasn't in no gang. They wasn't trying to hurt no one. The kids in the neighborhood decided to come over here and shoot both of my sons," their mother Amanda Wright said.
Her pain is unimaginable. Wright lost her dad to a shooting when she was just 11, and now her sons were killed the same way, in an alley behind their home.
Johnathan O'Neal was a student at Senn High School.
They were shot and killed in an alley behind their Ravenswood home, their mother said.
She rushed outside to find both of them dead.
"My younger son, I believe he was shot first. And the older son heard it, and he went to check to see what was going on, and when he went around here to check, they shot him, too," Wright said.
Wright said her younger son had gone outside to meet a friend, and not long after, she heard gunfire.
"I told them don't go outside because they were shooting out here, and they didn't listen to me," she said.
CPD has not released any motive in the case or details surrounding the shooting.
"We all have to be part of the solution because what's happening right now is not tolerable," 47th Ward Ald. Matt Martin said.
Candles and a flower mark the spot where the two brothers died together. And Wright has to bury her sons.
"I don't know what I'm gonna do. I don't know what I'm gonna do because they didn't deserve it," she said.
About 20 minutes before that shooting, there was another just blocks away on the same street.
CPD said a 15-year-old boy was walking on the sidewalk when someone in a vehicle fired shots in the 4300-block of North Ashland Avenue.
He was taken to Illinois Masonic by a family member, and is listed in good condition, with a graze wound to the back.
Police have not said if both of the shootings are linked.
But in both cases, no one is in custody.
