A second man has been charged in connection with last year’s fatal shooting of two Chicago Public Schools students in the Loop.
James Allison, 20, was arrested Monday in Crown Point, Indiana, according to Chicago police. He is charged with two counts of first-degree murder and one felony count each of attempted murder, aggravated discharge of a firearm and unlawful possession of a weapon.
Tommie Coleman, 22, was arrested last week and charged with two counts of murder and one count each of attempted murder, aggravated discharge of a firearm and unlawful use of a weapon by a convicted felon.
The two men, both from Chicago, are accused of fatally shooting Robert Boston, 16, and Monterio Williams, 17, about 12:30 p.m. Jan. 26, 2024. The shooting happened in the first block of North Wabash Avenue, which is around the corner from Innovations High School. Boston and Williams grew up next to each other on the Near West Side and were students at Innovations.
Coleman was ordered detained during his first court appearance last weekend, when prosecutors accused him, Allison and another man who died in June 2024 of getting out of a stolen SUV and ambushing the two teens. They allegedly fired their guns for 15 seconds. Boston was shot six times and Williams was shot three times; 22 shell casings from three different weapons were found at the scene.
Prosecutors said during Coleman’s detention hearing that the two teens were targets but did not explain why.
A bullet was also recovered from the jacket sleeve of a woman standing nearby, who was left with a bruise, and a CTA elevator door and a beam supporting a CTA platform were also hit.
Surveillance video and license plate readers captured Allison, who also attended Innovations, leaving school early and entering the SUV in a parking lot, before it circled the school’s doors twice and eventually parked nearby and waited for several minutes, prosecutors have said. The trio’s phone records also tied them to the movement of the vehicle and scene of the shooting.
The night of the shooting, Chicago police received a tip from one of the victims’ mothers that a student at the school had sent her videos Coleman and others had posted on Instagram of them wearing masks and riding in the SUV before and after the shooting, at one point singing about wearing masks and shooting someone, prosecutors said.
Allison is scheduled to appear in court Wednesday.