STUDENT ACTIVIST KILLED IN SHOOTING WEEKS AFTER PROTESTING POLICE PRESENCE IN CPS
A student leader with a youth activist group that has been prominent in the push to remove police from Chicago Public Schools died Sunday morning after he was shot two days earlier in the West Rogers Park neighborhood.
Caleb Reed, a 17-year-old junior at Mather High School on the North Side, just weeks earlier had spoken about his traumatic experience with officers at his school at a news conference ahead of a Board of Education vote on a $33 million contract with the Chicago Police Department.
Late last week, officers found Reed lying on a sidewalk about 1 p.m. Friday in the 1900 block of West Granville Avenue, authorities said. He had been shot in the head and was taken to St. Francis Hospital in Evanston, according to Chicago police.
Reed died at the hospital about 6:40 a.m. Sunday, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
Reed was a student leader with the group Voices of Youth in Chicago Education (VOYCE), one of several student groups advocating for the removal of officers from CPS.
Ald. Andre Vasquez (40th) described Reed as “a light in our community,” retweeting a post from student-led anti-violence group GoodKids MadCity that highlighted Reed’s activism.
Reed spoke at a rally in June alongside other activists and Ald. Jeanette Taylor (20th) and Ald. Rod Sawyer (6th) to protest the contract between CPS and CPD, which the school board soon after narrowly voted to keep intact for now.