A fundraiser has been launched for 18-year-old high school basketball captain Damarion Johnson, who was shot and killed in an East Garfield Park double murder earlier this month along with his Uber driver.
Candace Johnson launched the fundraiser earlier this month, calling her son’s loss “an unimaginable pain in our hearts.”
“No mother should have to bury her child, and asking for help is not easy,” Johnson said through the fundraiser. “Your kindness and support will help lighten the burden during one of the darkest moments of our lives.”
As of Thursday afternoon, over $1,800 of the family’s $9,000 goal has been raised.
Damarion Johnson and Jassen Cho, who was driving for Uber at the time of the shooting, were driving in the 200 block of North Homan Avenue around 8:30 p.m. May 7 when someone inside a gray SUV fired at them, Chicago police said.
A Hyundai Tucson linked to the shooting was soon found blocks away, according to a police report obtained by the Sun-Times. It had been set ablaze.
Cho was pronounced dead at Mount Sinai Hospital at 8:54 p.m., while Johnson died at 8:57 p.m. at Stroger Hospital, both from multiple gunshot wounds, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office, which ruled their deaths homicides.
A person of interest in the slayings, a 17-year-old boy, was arrested and then released without being charged about a week after the attack.
“As a mother of 8 children, I am now trying to navigate this tragedy while continuing to care for my other 7 children who are also devastated by the loss of their brother,” Johnson wrote.