Authorities have accused a 15-year-old boy of killing Hyde Park Academy sophomore Eric Billops and wounding another student, a 16-year-old girl, in a shooting that rocked the South Side high school this spring.
The Tribune is not naming the teen charged with Billops’ death because he is a minor. He was set to appear in juvenile court Thursday morning, facing six felony counts that include murder, attempted murder and aggravated unlawful possession of a weapon.
Per a Chicago Police Department news release, police arrested the boy in the 6700 block of South Cregier Avenue in South Shore, a short distance from the bus stop on the 6300 block of South Stony Island where the shooting occurred.
At a memorial shortly after his killing, friends and family said Billops, who often went by the nicknames “King” and “EK,” was known for his love of basketball and football. He was standing at the bus stop with the 16-year-old girl around 3:20 p.m. April 15, about a block away from the school, when someone approached them and started to fire. According to a police report obtained by the Tribune, the shooter was wearing a school uniform.
According to that report, Wentworth Area detectives learned that Billops had been planning to fight another Hyde Park Academy student after school. As he stood at the bus stop that afternoon, witnesses said the shooter walked up to Billops, took a gun from a backpack and began firing before fleeing to the south.
Billops was shot multiple times and pronounced dead soon afterward. The girl standing with him was wounded in the calf.
According to the police report, the school’s dean said several other students told him the identity of the shooter, whom witnesses saw running away from the scene.
Police recovered about a dozen handgun shell casings and two book bags in the wake of the shooting, which sent Hyde Park Academy into a soft lockdown.
At his memorial, Billops’ grandmother Jerri Billops said her grandson left behind a younger brother. She’d long insisted on taking Billops to school, fearing the dangers he might face on the commute, but relented as he got older and told her he’d be fine.
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“I thought I was gonna get to go to a graduation,” she said. “I don’t understand.”