Chicago Area Local News

CHICAGO (CBS) ― There's a noticeable police presence outside yet another Chicago high school, now that yet another teenager has been gun downed near a city school. Two teenagers have been charged in the shooting death.

At least 20 Chicago Public Schools students have been shot and killed so far this school year.

Just this weekend seven students were shot and two of them died, including a student who attended Saturday classes at Simeon Career Academy.

Outside the school on Monday, there were more police – a direct result of violence that claimed Chavez Clarke's life. Samuel Hill, 17, is being held without bail, and Ronald Little, 19, is being held on $1 million bond. 

Officials say Clarke was in school on the weekends, working to make up missed credits so he could graduate on time. But after class, outside the building, a bullet got in the way of his diploma. 

His family is pleased with the progress, but they say they still have a lot of unanswered questions.

"They killed my brother in cold blood," the victim's sister Alexis Clarke, said. "He was not a gang member at all."

She is outraged over news accounts linking her brother with gang activity.

Commander Eddie Johnson said, "The shooting this past Saturday at Simeon stemmed from a previous altercation."

According to Johnson, 17-year-old Samuel Hill was the triggerman and 19-year-old Ronald Little provided the gun. He said both of them went to Dunbar High School.

"My brother was a great student," Clarke said. "He had so many people that loved him. I wasn't here because I was away at school, but I was told that when they took him to the hospital there was two waiting rooms full of students who came to see him."

"I was elated that something is being done, but I was heartbroken by the defense that they are potentially going to try to make," Clarke said.

In court Monday prosecutors revealed an unarmed crowd approached Little and three friends in the parking lot and the two groups exchanged words.

Prosecutors say Little pulled out a handgun, and Hill grabbed it and fired into the crowd. Hill's attorney does not dispute that detail.

"My client will plead some sort of self-defense," defense attorney Howard Weisman said. "He was protecting himself from a large group of individuals that were attacking him."

"Why is it that a 19-year-old and a 17-year-old had access to guns?" Clarke said. "That is a problem. My brother was the 20th person killed in our school system this year. When are we going to get upset enough angry enough and ask our legislators to do something about gun control? This is ridiculous."

Clarke's family describes him as a giving person.

Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan said, "These young people doing the shootings, these are basically suicide missions. We have cameras everywhere, we see them, they're locked up, they're not just destroying someone else's lives, they're destroying their own. They're done forever."

Duncan is passionate about getting guns off the streets.

He also believes "we have to challenge parents to parent. Where these students have parents, this doesn't happen. And we have to get young people not just to value the lives of others, we have to get young people to value their own lives."

The kids who get that message are taking their concerns to city leaders on Tuesday. Chavez Clarke's family will join hundreds of Simeon students Tuesday morning in a protest against gun violence at the Thompson Center.

But being proactive doesn't necessarily wipe away the worry.

Concerned mother Margie Hartwell said, "We have a wonderful school up here and I'm so sad for this to happen at our school."

Simeon's principal says between 400 and 500 students will board buses Tuesday to go to an 11 a.m. protest of guns and violence at the Thompson Center in the Loop.

CBS 2's Pamela Jones and Kristyn Hartman contributed to this report.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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