On June 13, 2011, 15-year-old Jovany Diaz was fatally shot while standing outside with his cousin in the 4300 block of West Hirsch Street in Chicago’s Humboldt Park. The shooting happened around 10 p.m.; Jovany was struck in the chest and taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 10:46 p.m. His cousin, hit in the hand, was treated and released.

Jovany was a freshman at Amundsen High School who loved basketball and hoped to play in the NBA. Family remembered him as a straight-A student with a joyful personality who lived with his grandmother and whose family planned to move to a safer neighborhood by the end of the month. Witnesses described the shooter as a Hispanic teenager in a black tank top and blue jeans, and some neighbors speculated the attack may have been gang-related.

A memorial at the shooting site the next day was itself disrupted when another person was shot in the legs after multiple rounds were fired into the crowd. On September 27, 2012, authorities charged 20-year-old Karl Allen with first-degree murder in Jovany’s killing; Allen was identified in a lineup and arrested by the Chicago Police Fugitive Apprehension Team, and bond was denied.