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Teen Charged With Shooting 7-Year-Old In West Garfield Park

Updated 08/20/13 - 12:44 p.m.

CHICAGO (CBS) -- A teenager who was already on electronic monitoring for drug charges was ordered held on $900,000 bond Tuesday for allegedly shooting a 7-year-old boy in the West Garfield Park neighborhood.

Lavante Jackson, a freshman at Crane Technical Preparatory High School, was charged as an adult with felony aggravated battery. He is accused of shooting 7-year-old Tyvion Jackson outside the boy's home in the 4200 block of West Fifth Avenue on Sunday. Jackson and the victim are not related.

Tyvion and his family were returning home from a family picnic around 9 p.m. Sunday, and he was helping a cousin put her bike in the house, when Jackson allegedly opened fire on a car that was outside Tyvion's home. Tyvion was not the intended target.

Teen Charged With Shooting 7-Year-Old In West Garfield Park

Tyvion's mother, Tasha McDuffie, said her son was helping his cousin bring her bike in the house after a family picnic when he was shot.

"As they got in between the two doors, shots rang out, and hit him under his arm, and in his shoulder," she said. "He's doing fairly well, he's just traumatized, and he's afraid to come outside."

Tyvion was treated at Mount Sinai Hospital, and was released Monday morning.

McDuffie said her son should make a full physical recovery, but she's angry he wasn't safe from gun violence on the steps of his own home.

"I'm very angry, because he's 7 years old, he's a kid. Kids are supposed to be able to play outdoors, be able to go in their home," McDuffie said. "Your home is your comfort zone, so he should be able to go in the house, and get ready for bed, and go to school like normal kids, but instead he gets shot going inside his house."

At Jackson's bond hearing, prosecutors said he was on electronic monitoring at the time of the shooting, as he was facing unrelated charges in a drug case.

Police said an argument nearby led to the shooting that wounded Tyvion. Two stray bullets hit the boy in the arm.

Witnesses said the gunman ran through the courtyard of Charles Sumner Math & Science Community Academy Elementary School, across the street. The car he targeted fled the scene.

Neighbors said the area is relatively safe.

"Everybody was just screaming and hollering, because he's a 7 year old boy. Everybody was shocked, and mainly shocked because none of us would have never thought that this would happen right here," Tubbs said. "This is the safest part of the neighborhood, for them to play here. I know all the kids right here. They come out, play right here, or they play by the school."

Neighbor Jeannette Pruitt said gun violence has not been a problem for that block, but it's a different story just a few blocks away.

"In this block, we haven't had no problem. Now, you go to Pulaski, it's different. We haven't had no problem here," she said.

Pruitt said she's lived on that street for more than 40 years, and this was the first time there was a shooting on the block.

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