14-year-old killed, 8 wounded in shootings during ‘teen takeover’ in Loop hours after tree-lighting ceremony

A 14-year-old boy was killed and eight other teenagers were wounded in separate shootings late on a bustling Friday night that saw thousands of people gather in the Loop to kick off the holiday season.

The chaos that unfolded during the so-called teen takeover “set us back as a city, and it evokes fear,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said of the attacks that happened steps away from many of the city’s most iconic tourist destinations, shortly after the annual tree-lighting ceremony in Millennium Park.

A mass shooting happened just outside the Chicago Theatre, and the homicide occurred 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,” Johnson said as detectives investigated Saturday morning. “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.”

Seven teens were wounded in the first of two shootings, which happened near the theater about 9:50 p.m. in the 100 block of North State.

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• This report was published in partnership with the Chicago Sun-Times. For more, visit chicago.suntimes.com.