CHICAGO — Jess Kendall and four friends were just two blocks from the United Center, where they planned to attend the Lil Durk concert, when they were robbed and attacked at gunpoint on Sunday evening, according to Chicago police.
Kendall, 18, of Elgin, was pistol-whipped and shot during the confrontation. He was taken to John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County in critical condition and died hours later.
“It was really heartbreaking to hear that,” an Elgin resident named Martha who knows the Kendall family told WGN. “He didn’t get a chance to graduate from high school, to finish out his life. I knew he would have been someone great, because he was great being young and an entrepreneur, and nowadays you don’t see kids out here like that.”
Martha remembered the teen as a hard worker who, with his older brother, offered lawn care and other home and yard maintenance services around the neighborhood.
According to a police report obtained by WGN, Kendall and his group were on the sidewalk on the 100 block of North Wolcott Avenue ahead of the 7 p.m. show when the attackers approached, two of them on Divvy bikes. Weapons were shown and words exchanged.