Inset: Syruss Box, Jr. (GoFundMe). Background: The 400 block of W. 110th Street in the Roseland neighborhood of Chicago, Ill., where Syruss Box, Jr. was shot and killed (WLS/YouTube).
A 15-year-old boy visiting a Chicago neighborhood to celebrate his brother’s birthday was gunned down in front of his mother, who tried to “keep him alive” by holding the teen’s neck where he was shot as he “took his last breath” in her arms, the mom says.
“They killed my baby,” said Tierra Evans, mother of Syruss Box Jr., in an interview with local ABC affiliate WLS. “He wasn’t even from around there. He just came over there to celebrate his brother’s birthday,” the mom added.
Box, who is from 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” pulled up and two individuals inside of it started blasting.
“Two-door with two masked men,” Evans said, alleging that she saw them.
“They flew down Eggleston,” the mom added, noting how Box wound up being fatally shot in the neck and abdomen. “I was holding his neck, trying to keep him alive,” Evans said. “He took his last breath in my arms. My baby died in my arms.”
Box’s grandmother, Tara Knighten, and great-grandmother, Barbara Myers, told WLS the family has been struggling immensely with the loss. Police have yet to bring anyone into custody as a suspect.
“I’m so sad… I don’t know what to do,” Myers said.
“He didn’t even get a chance to live,” Knighten added. “He was innocent. But I guess God needed him more than we did. Whoever did this — you need to stop. We’re destroying each other.”
A GoFundMe created for Evans by one of her cousins says Box was “out doing what he loves to do best” — spending time with family and “being a kid” — when he was shot and killed Saturday. The fundraiser’s description says he was “wrongfully targeted and gunned down in broad daylight by the hands of walking demons while visiting family.”
Describing Box by his nickname “Tuggie,” the fundraiser describes him as a “very loving, helpful, kind-hearted child.” It says he was the oldest out of six and “always put his siblings and his mother before himself.”
