Whether he was cooking for his relatives or playing basketball with his friends, 15-year-old John Thomas considered everyone meaningful in his life to be his family.
“There had never been a friend that hadn’t became family,” said Selinda Bennett, John’s mother. “Everyone that he touched became family in some type of way.”
John was biking to his father’s house to go trick-or-treating Friday afternoon when he was fatally shot in the 1300 block of West Grenshaw Street on the Near West Side, Bennett and Chicago police said.
A resident was working from a loft at his duplex around 4:15 p.m. Friday when he heard “a dozen shots in succession.”
“I heard the first shots and it totally startled me because it was so loud,” said the 58-year-old resident, who didn’t want to be named due to safety concerns. “I saw the muzzle flashes and the shooting and I was just, like, shocked, and just, [like], ‘What the hell is going on?'”
The resident said he saw the shots strike John, causing him to fall off of his bike and onto the grass.
“He kind of leans up in a sitting position and he comes up with a gun and starts shooting back,” the resident said.
John having a gun could not be confirmed with Chicago police and it was not mentioned in a police report obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times.
The shooter in the vehicle then fired five or six more shots, striking John in the upper body, according to the resident.
“I saw him fall back and he was motionless, and then the car drove off,” the resident said. “When I went to call 911, all I could see in my head is this kid lying on his back with his arms flayed and completely motionless.”
“It was like a war zone, something you see in a movie,” the resident added.
Responding officers placed chest seals, pressure bandages and a tourniquet on John’s wounds and he was taken to Stroger Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 4:48 p.m. Friday, according to the police report.
“They took my world,” said Bennett, 36. “He touched so many hearts, so many people.”
“We’ve just been around family, around friends, around the kids, just taking it one day at a time, one hour, one second,” Bennett added.
At least 20 rifle and pistol shell casings were recovered from the scene.
When asked if she knew whether John may have been armed at the time of the shooting, Bennett strongly denied that he was and said detectives told her only his keys and phone were recovered from him.
“He wasn’t a child that kept a f – – – ing gun,” Bennett said. “He had his daddy, his cousins, everybody.”
Pod camera footage in the 1300 block of West 13th Street shows two males approaching John on foot leading to a fight over his bike before John regained control of his bike and continued west on 13th Street shortly before the shooting, according to the police report.
Bennett stressed that she wanted justice not just for her son, but for everyone he was around.
“My son was loved. My son was happy,” Bennett said. “He served for everyone.”
In the days after the shooting, the resident felt a “little vulnerable” whether he was outside or inside his home.
“I’ve got all these windows and now my back faces these windows, and there is a little part of me that is worried about a bullet coming through the window,” the resident said.
He described hearing gunfire at least once a week, witnessing the end of a carjacking chase in front of his home and having his wife’s car broken into multiple times in the three years he’s lived in the area.
“I never thought I would witness anything like this firsthand,” the resident said. “I think something needs to be done. … I would be happy to see the National Guard in my neighborhood.”
John was the valedictorian of his eighth grade class and was keeping his grades high at Chicago Bulls College Prep, according to Bennett.
He enjoyed playing basketball, math, cooking, dancing and joking with friends, among other things.
“He’s gonna speak to you, and he’s gonna make sure you know that he’s there,” Bennett said. “He was just a kid living in a time.”
Bennett had one message she wanted to pass along to other parents after just losing her son.
“Hug your kids and let your kids know that you love them.”