16-year-old boy shot to death in West Englewood

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A 16-year-old boy was shot to death late Friday in the West Englewood neighborhood. | Daniel Brown/For the Sun-Times

CHICAGO (Sun-Times Media Wire) - A 16-year-old boy was shot to death Friday night in the West Englewood neighborhood on the South Side.

Melvin Cook was shot in the head just after 9 p.m. by two males who approached the vehicle he was riding in, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office. At the time of the shooting, the vehicle was going down an alley in the 6500 block of South Hamilton Avenue.

Cook, who lived in the 5700 block of South Calumet, was pronounced dead at the scene at 9:27 p.m., authorities said.

Police said the driver ran away from the vehicle after the shooting.

Cook’s mother, Lekeisha Cook, said she found out about her son when one of his friends called her.

She was told that her son and a friend were sitting in the car when someone walked up and asked them where they were from. “I’m not about that,” she was told her son said. Then the person opened fire. The boy’s friend was not hurt.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Lekeisha Cook said. “I don’t know how I’m going to bury him. … I just bought a plane ticket to Mississippi, and now he’s dead.”