Suspect in fatal shooting of Tilden honor student released without charges

A person who was taken into custody after Tuesday’s fatal shooting of a high school junior gunned down while walking to school in an attack that also wounded two men in Back of the Yards has been released without charges, police said Thursday.

Pedro Ramirez, 17, was walking from his home to class at Tilden High School about 7:40 a.m. when four masked assailants jumped out of a Jeep in the 5000 block of South Throop Street and fired shots from a rifle toward a red minivan, according to Chicago police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

Pedro, who was on the school’s soccer and volleyball team, was struck by a stray bullet as he walked westbound on the south side of 51st Street, according to a police report. He died at Comer Children’s Hospital less than an hour later.

Two men who were inside the minivan, ages 55 and 61, were both shot and drove away and called 911, the report said. They were both taken to Stroger Hospital and were expected to survive their injuries.

A 911 caller who witnessed the attack gave police a description of the Jeep. Officers then chased it and took one of the four occupants of the Jeep into custody near 44th Street and Wolcott Avenue, but that person was released from custody Thursday. The other three assailants got away on foot, according to the report. One pistol and one rifle were found in the Jeep.

Pedro, an honor roll student at Tilden, has been remembered by family and friends as a “peaceful kid” whose “smile was contagious.”

“His friends are destroyed,” said Pedro’s mother, Asucena Velazquez. “I always knew he had a lot of friends, but I didn’t realize how much they loved him. But they’ve shown me that my son was an excellent friend and classmate. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Chicago police are continuing to investigate the shooting.