College Student Shot, Critically Wounded, Over Cell Phone
UPDATED: 1/17/2014 3:45 p.m.
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A college student was shot in the head while walking home from school, after two men robbed him and a woman of their cell phones on Thursday.
CBS 2's Susanna Song reports Kevin Baker, a freshman at Harold Washington College, was in critical condition at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn early Friday.
Around 4:15 p.m. Thursday, Baker was walking home with a cousin in the Chicago Lawn neighborhood, when a dark-colored van pulled up in the 6200 block of South Campbell Avenue, and two men got out, one of them wielding a handgun.
The two men told Baker and his cousin to hand over their cell phones.
Police said the victims did everything right, but as the robbers walked away, one of them shouted at Baker, then shot him.
Baker was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he remained in critical condition Friday morning.
"Stop killing our kids. It's too much. Stop this. Stop this. One day, you're going to shoot, and it's going to be your mother walking down the street, and she's gone because of some fool," said one of Baker's cousins, Arlene Allen, as his family gathered at Christ Medical Center, praying for a miracle. "Today it's not your family. Today it's my cousin. Today, that's like my little brother laying up in there fighting for his life, and now he has nothing left but his family fighting for him, and God's good will, and I just hope that people learn from this."
Allen said Baker, who turns 20 in March, was studious. He wanted to become an architect.
"He was excited about going to school," she said. "I mean, he was excited to have a chance to grow up and be somebody; and now because somebody else was jealous because they didn't have the new phone or the new stuff out there, they think it's okay to take his life over a phone. Over a phone."
Police said no one was in custody for the shooting as of early Friday.
"It's very touch and go," Allen said. "The outcome is not looking good. Right now we're trying to support my sister and keep her strong. That's her only son."
