still at large<\/a> as of Thursday morning. Police arrested a man in connection with the shooting within hours, but later released him without charges.<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s not fair how his life got taken away while coming to school,\u201d the 16-year-old said. \u201cAnd it doesn\u2019t seem fair how the people are still out there, and my friend\u2019s never going to come back, and they\u2019re living a normal life. And his family is just here suffering.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other signs referenced Ram\u00edrez\u2019s volleyball jersey: \u201cForever #9.\u201d After walking from Tilden to the site of the shooting, at the intersection of 51st and Throop Streets, his teammates crowded together at the front.<\/p>\n
They stood in their blue and yellow jerseys, their arms wrapped around each other as Tilden\u2019s athletic director, Crystle Saylor, spoke briefly about how Ram\u00edrez was \u201cknown for the way he treated people.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was the first to volunteer when something needed to get done,\u201d she said. \u201cHe had friends in every corner of this building \u2026 there\u2019s a reason he made homecoming court every year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Volleyball coach Carlos Delcid, surrounded by other players in their jerseys, said he saw the boy as one of his own children.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf my son grows up to be just like him, I\u2019ll be the happiest, proudest father there could be,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Ram\u00edrez\u2019s parents, Asucena Velazquez and Eloisa Garcia, led the march and listened to the tributes from the front row of the crowd. Each wore a No. 9 jersey.<\/p>\n
Garcia spoke last and thanked the crowd for their support, but also posed a question: \u201cWhere\u2019s the mayor at?\u201d<\/p>\n
She said she wanted to see more elected officeholders turn their attention to her son\u2019s shooting.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere should be charges going out,\u201d she said. \u201cWe need more officials to be here, because he was just walking to school.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not everyone who came out to the memorial was a Tilden student. Ximena Soto, 21, her father Felix Soto, along with her mom and little sister, brought up the rear of the march, holding hands.<\/p>\n
The family lived down the street from Ram\u00edrez, Ximena Soto said. They hadn\u2019t known him well, but would see him walking his dog.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was the same age as my brother,\u201d said. \u201cHe also takes the bus to school.\u201d<\/p>\n
With his daughter translating, 50-year-old Felix Soto said he had checked his surveillance camera footage from the morning of the shooting, and saw Ramirez and his own 17-year-old son had left for school within 10 minutes of each other.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt could be anyone,\u201d he said. \u201cHe was just a kid. He went to school, came back from school. He did nothing wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For many students at Tilden High School, summer vacation began with their classmate\u2019s memorial service. Dozens of high…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":845192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5124],"tags":[32419,960,5386,1818,273103,101,339780],"class_list":["post-845191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago","tag-back-of-the-yards","tag-chicago","tag-il","tag-illinois","tag-pedro-ramirez","tag-shooting","tag-tilden-high-school"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116695298652014064","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845191","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=845191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/845192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=845191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=845191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=845191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}