A 15-year-old boy was gunned down in front of his mother, who tried to “keep him alive” by holding his neck where he was shot, as he “took his last breath” in her arms.
“They killed my baby,” said Tierra Evans, mother of Syruss Box Jr., in an interview with local ABC affiliate, WLS. “He wasn’t from around there. “He just came over there to celebrate his brother’s birthday,” the mother explained.
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Box, of Posen, was killed Saturday just after 6 p.m. in the 400-block of W. 110th Street in Roseland, according to police. He was reportedly standing near the sidewalk when a “silver Honda” drove up and two people inside began blasting.
“Two-door with two masked men,” Evans claimed she saw them.
“They flew down Eggleston,” the mom added. Box was fatally shot in the neck and abdomen. “I was holding his neck, trying to keep him alive,” Evans told me. “He breathed his last in my arms.” “My baby died in my arms.”
Box’s grandmother, Tara Knighten, and great-grandmother, Barbara Myers, told WLS that the loss has been extremely difficult for the family. Police have yet to take anyone into custody as a suspect.
“I’m really sad…” “I don’t know what to do,” Myers admitted.
“He didn’t even get a chance to live,” Knighten said. “He was innocent. But maybe God needed him more than we did. Whoever did this, you must stop. “We are destroying each other.”
According to a GoFundMe page set up by one of Evans’ cousins, Box was shot and killed while doing what he enjoyed most: spending time with family and being a kid. The fundraiser’s description states that he was “wrongfully targeted and gunned down in broad daylight by the hands of walking demons while visiting family.”
The fundraiser describes Box, who goes by the nickname “Tuggie,” as a “very loving, helpful, kind-hearted child.” It says he was the oldest of six and “always put his siblings and his mother before himself.”