CHICAGO (STNG) -- With about two months left in the year, Chicago has already surpassed last year’s total homicide count.
Two teenage boys shot and killed during a fight on an Englewood street Thursday evening were the latest victims.
The deaths of Brian Murdock, 15, and Quinton Buckner, 17, brought the total number of people killed to at least 446, according to reports from the Sun-Times News Group wire. At the end of 2007, 443 homicides were recorded in the city.
The official homicide count through Oct. 31 was 441, a 16.4 percent increase over last year at that time.
But since then, a 21-year-old man was shot in the head in Marquette Park, two men were found in a burning car near Hegewisch with multiple gunshot wounds, a 22-year-old man was shot and killed in a dice game in Englewood and the teens were shot dead, also in Englewood.
One of the teens, Brian Murdock, was found slumped against a fence when his father got to the block where the shooting happened.
James Murdock, a retired carpenter and single father, said he adopted Brian when the boy was “8 or 9.” He was planning to transfer his son out of Robeson High School, where both Brian Murdock and Quinton Buckner attended, because the elder Murdock was worried about gang fights.
In recent days, Brian had been talking about his fear of being attacked, his father said.
“He was talking about the little gang members at school,” said James Murdock, 63. “He was going to get jumped on. They might try to kill him.”
Murdock said he last saw his son Thursday morning, when the father made his boy ham, eggs and toast for breakfast at their South Side home. Murdock also has five biological children.
“His mamma walked off and left him, and I couldn’t let him stay on the street,” Murdock said.
James Murdock said his son had recently been suspended for fighting at school. To help avoid problems, Murdock said, he’d offered to pick up his son and drive him to school.
“He didn’t want me to do that — to look stupid in front of the other kids,” Murdock said.
Quinton Buckner was a motivated kid who wanted to play football in college and later become a marine, said his older brother, Dennis Buckner, 22.
Dennis Buckner described his brother as a “good kid” who didn’t have any gang connections that he knew about. Buckner said Quinton had four siblings — two brothers and two sisters.
All violent crime in the city is up 3.5 percent and property crime is up 3.7 percent, through Oct. 31, the department said.
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