A 19-year-old man in Illinois is charged with first-degree murder for shooting down a 16-year-old near a playground — shooting him 25 times “in daylight” with “numerous” children nearby — after a child in the neighborhood complained to the young man about “older boys” taking toy weapons from the youth and “shooting them” with the toys, police say.
According to The Herald-News, a local news website, Jaquan Blalock, who was 17 at the time of the May 2023 shooting, is accused of killing Antoine Shropshire with a gun with a “switch and extended magazine” after an alleged dispute over the Orbeez guns, which are technically toys that shoot gel balls but look like real guns.
According to charging documents obtained by the Herald-News, the Orbeez fiasco led Blalock to the park that day with his pistol.
“Older boys were taking their Orbeez guns from them and shooting them with their Orbeez guns,” according to a court petition filed by prosecutors on April 14, per the Herald-News. Blalock targeted Shropshire “in broad daylight near a park with numerous adults and children nearby,” according to prosecutors.
He allegedly shot the teen 25 times alongside another person.
Surveillance video from the area shows Blalock standing over Shropshire at one point, with the boy on the ground dying, before “unloading his gun into him,” according to prosecutors. The other suspect is accused of firing his gun at other people in the area.
Blalock was arrested and taken to the River Valley Juvenile Detention Center in Joliet, where he is accused of attacking a fellow prisoner.
“[Blalock] made a statement about the incident that it was ‘mob [expletive]’ and ‘bound to happen,'” said the prosecutor.
Blalock’s attorneys have filed a motion seeking pretrial release.
The Will County judge overseeing the case is expected to rule on April 22.
