Judge orders arrest of teenager who murdered 7-year-old boy on Near West Side – Chicago Tribune

Cook County prosecutors said Saturday that extensive surveillance footage, numerous friends, police officers and two eyewitnesses helped identify a 16-year-old boy as the gunman who fired a semi-automatic rifle into a Near West Side housing project, killing the 7-year-old. Jai’Mani Amir Rivera.

Teenager Raysean Comer, who had two outstanding juvenile arrest warrants and two pending cases, was recognized in photos by three Chicago police officers who had prior contact with him, authorities told a Cook County judge during a detention hearing in Leighton. Criminal Court Building.

Comer, of Henry Horner Homes, was charged as an adult with first-degree murder in the shooting death of Jai’Mani. Judge Antara Nath Rivera ordered Comer placed in juvenile detention while the case continues.

Prosecutors said Jai’Mani left his apartment complex in the 2300 block of West Jackson Boulevard on Tuesday around 3 p.m. to take a cooking pot to a next-door neighbor for his mother.

As the child emerged from the building, he was struck by a gunshot in the back, Assistant State’s Attorney Anne McCord Rodgers said in court. With a single bloodstain on his white T-shirt, the injured child returned to the lobby of his building and collapsed as someone ran to help him.

Responding officers applied chest compressions to the boy and took him in a police vehicle to Stroger Hospital, where he was pronounced dead less than an hour later, officials said. An autopsy determined that Jai’Mani had been shot in the torso, and the Cook County Medical Examiner ruled the boy’s death a homicide.

Rodgers said a “constant network of surveillance footage” collected from multiple cameras captured Comer before and during the shooting, with some showing his face.

Video captured him walking toward Crane High School, pulling a rifle from his pants and firing several shots into the building at 2325 W. Jackson Blvd. at the same time, Jai’Mani was shot. Police recovered 13 spent .223 caliber shell casings from a parking lot behind Crane Medical Prep High School. The caliber bullets are fired from AK-47 type rifles.

The day after the boy’s death, authorities published photos of the killer in a police bulletin, asking for help in identifying him. Shortly thereafter, three police officers identified Comer as the armed man in the photos. Rodgers said two of those officers personally arrested Comer in March 2023 for trespassing.

Authorities received two other tips, including one from a woman who said the teenager fired a rifle near her car and fled the scene.

According to the arrest report, while Comer was being arrested at his home about a mile from the shooting scene, a loaded 9 mm handgun was thrown out of a window and found.

In approving Comer’s request for pretrial detention, the judge ruled that prosecutors presented clear and convincing evidence that Comer was a gunman and that he posed a danger to society.

The boy’s shooting death after the city’s violent Father’s Day weekend prompted Police Superintendent Dennis Snelling and Mayor Brandon Johnson to express outrage at the senseless killing.

“The accidental shooting of a 7-year-old is unacceptable,” the superintendent told reporters Tuesday evening outside Stroger Hospital. “It wasn’t a situation where the parents didn’t know where their child was,” Snelling added. “This child was leaving his residence and was hit by a random gunshot.”

Comer is expected to return to the field on Tuesday.

Charles himself contributed to this report.