The MySpace page for soccer player Kabiru Adewunmi, who was shot and killed earlier this week. (Credit: MySpace/Kabiru Adewunmi)
Updated 4/29/2011 at 4:30 p.m.
CHICAGO (CBS) – Kabiru Adewunmi’s dream to be a star on the soccer field ended in gunfire this week, and now police want to know who was responsible.
Adewunmi, 16, was shot to death around 9:30 p.m. Tuesday in the 800 block of East 82nd Street in the Chatham neighborhood. He was discovered unresponsive near an alley, police News Officer Amina Greer said.
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The boy was shot multiple times and was taken to Jackson Park Hospital where he was pronounced dead at 10:30 p.m., according to a spokesman for the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office.
Adewunmi, a native of Nigeria, had come to Chicago less than a year ago to play in a youth soccer league operated by the Chicago Fire.
“He said, ‘One day I’m going to play for the Chicago Fire,’” his coach, Sole Antonijevich, told CBS 2’s Mike Puccinelli. “He was that good. He had a lot of passion.”
Police say gangbangers targeted Kabiru and four of his teammates as they walked to a convenience store Tuesday night. According to Antonijevich, the four boys who survived say the gunman asked if they were the Nigerian soccer players before opening fire on the group.
Adewunmi had recently moved to the Chatham neighborhood, and was not involved in gangs, friends told the Chicago Tribune.
“He was working hard to make a better life for himself,” MiMi Antonijevic said. “And for no reason for someone to take his life makes no sense.”
The Sun-Times Media Wire contributed to this report.
