Friends and family said their final goodbyes Saturday to a teenager shot and killed last weekend in Mount Hope.
Richie Carrillo, 14, was sitting on the tailgate of a parked pick-up truck in an alley on Island Avenue near Market Street in Mt. Hope March 24 around 8 p.m.
The teenager was talking with friends, when a dark colored SUV drove toward them and stopped.
Two males got out of the SUV and began shooting toward Carrillo and his friends. Carrillo tried to flee on foot, but was struck by the gunfire. The two suspects, described as in their 20's, got back into the SUV and drove westbound from the scene.
Paramedics arrived to treat Carrillo, but he died at the scene.
The funeral service was at St. Rita's Catholic Church in Lincoln Park Saturday.
Police are unsure what instigated the shooting and are investigating the incident. Detectives and forensic specialists are currently processing the scene for evidence and trying to locate witnesses.
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After the weekend, Carrillo's family, friends and peers mourned his loss.
"All I want is to just find the people who did this," said Carrillo's grandmother, Rosa Gijalva. "That's all I'm asking for. I don't think that's fair. He was just a child."
Carrillo was an eighth-grader at Millenium Tech Middle School. The principal of the school, Helen Griffith, said he was kind, respectful and very well-liked by his peers.
"He may have been the next doctor, had the next cure for cancer, he may have been the next great principal," Griffith said. "We don't know. So that's why it's got to stop. He definitely had a life full of promise. And we want to take that memory now and live that life through our students."
Anyone with information related to this incident is encouraged to call the Homicide Unit at 619-531-2293 or Crime Stoppers at 888-580-8477.
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