A 55-year-old Lakeview man has been charged with murder after police said he shot two teen boys Thursday evening in Douglass Park \u2013 killing a 15-year-old and seriously wounding a 14-year-old.<\/p>\n
Chicago police announced Saturday evening that Charles Leto, of the 1000 block of West George Street, was charged with first-degree murder, attempted murder, and two other felonies related to the shooting, which Leto claimed to police had been in self-defense after the boys attacked and followed him.<\/p>\n
The Cook County medical examiner\u2019s office identified the deceased teen as Marjay Dotson, who died from a gunshot wound to the back and the death was ruled a homicide. The wounded teen was identified by his family as Jeremy Herred, whose great-great uncle, the Rev. Marvin Hunter, called the shooting \u201csenseless.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a sign of the times in which we live,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I\u2019m praying that people will reverse their attitude as it pertains to conflict resolution and violence,\u201d Hunter said Saturday.<\/p>\n
An earlier police report on the incident<\/a> stated officers arrived at the West Side park around 7 p.m. and found the man kneeling on the ground with a gun by his knee, among a large crowd on a basketball court.<\/p>\n Man being questioned in Thursday shooting of teens in Douglass Park<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Witnesses said the two boys approached the man as part of a group as he was fixing his bike near the park fieldhouse and that the man took a gun out of his backpack and fired two shots, according to the report. The older teen was shot in the lower right back and pronounced dead around 7:40 p.m., while the younger teen was shot in the neck and taken to Stroger Hospital in serious condition, police said.<\/p>\n Herred is a relative of Laquan McDonald, whose murder by Officer Jason Van Dyke in 2014 helped expose foundational problems with policing <\/a>in Chicago. Herred remained hospitalized in critical condition, the family said.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s strong and we\u2019re hopeful,\u201d Hunter said.<\/p>\n Leto has a valid FOID card and concealed carry license, according to police sources. He is expected to appear before a judge for a detention hearing on Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n Attorney Jeffrey Neslund, who represents the Herred family, said he understood Leto was a park district employee and told the Tribune Saturday evening that \u201cthere are a lot of open questions about who is and how he ended up at the park.\u201d<\/p>\n Neslund said the family is relieved charges were filed, pointing to surveillance video, reported by WGN-TV<\/a> and CWB Chicago<\/a>, that he claimed showed neither teen attacking Leto.<\/p>\n Hunter questioned why Leto felt the need to bring a weapon on park district property.<\/p>\n \u201cNo weapon\u2014the weapon at home in a lock box, secured\u2014and my nephew would not be wounded and fighting for his life,\u201d Hunter said. \u201cAnd Marjay, the other young man, would not be dead.\u201d<\/p>\n Originally Published: June 28, 2025 at 6:56 PM CDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 55-year-old Lakeview man has been charged with murder after police said he shot two teen boys Thursday…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":23355,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,21182,7614,5386,1818,21183,3983],"class_list":{"0":"post-23354","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-douglass-park","10":"tag-gun","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-illinois","13":"tag-killing","14":"tag-teenager"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n