Rashad Verner was an 18-year-old senior at Urban Prep Academies in Bronzeville when he was shot and killed on September 28, 2020. Police found him unresponsive at a home in South Shore; he was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center and pronounced dead. A 19-year-old friend survived gunshot wounds to the shoulder and back.

Initial accounts from the family described the incident as a tragic accident. Investigators later reported that Rashad and his friend had gone to the address to purchase a gun and that the meeting was a phony sale set up to rob them. The robbers shot Rashad and took the $350 he had brought. In June 2021, two men, Justin Jones, 19, and Jasper Price, 25, were charged in connection with Rashad’s murder; a third person involved has not been apprehended and the case remains under investigation.

Rashad is remembered by his school and community as a bright student and football player who planned to attend college. If anyone has information about the third suspect or the events that afternoon, please come forward.