Nov. 22 (UPI) -- A 14-year-old boy died and eight other teenagers were wounded in separate shootings in downtown Chicago hours after people were celebrating the start of the holiday season nearby.
The shooting occurred around 9:50 p.m. Friday, about four hours after the city's official tree lighting at Daley Plaza and a few blocks away, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
The mass shooting was outside the Chicago Theater on State Street and the other an hour later near Federal Plaza.
"The holiday season is a time when we come together as a city. It's when we spend time with our family and our loved ones," Mayor Brandon Johnson said. "This is the opposite type of behavior that anybody wants to see. We have too many guns and too many young people who don't value their own lives or the lives of others."
According to reports, a so-called teen takeover occurred after the tree lighting, and was described as 300 teens rioting in the streets.
