'A tragic accident': Juvenile charged with involuntary manslaughter in death of 14-year-old

A juvenile is charged with involuntary manslaughter in the shooting death of a 14-year-old Prospect Heights boy, the result of a "tragic accident" in which the juvenile, believing the gun to be empty, pointed a pistol at the boy and fired a fatal shot, police said.

Eric Casique died Friday afternoon inside an apartment on the 500 block of Piper Lane in Prospect Heights.

Police said Monday that Prospect Heights police and Major Case Assistance Team investigators learned Friday that four juveniles and a 19-year-old man were hanging out at the apartment. The juveniles were passing around and taking turns "dry firing" an unloaded .380-caliber pistol, police said.

Police said one of the juveniles "inserted a loaded magazine and chambered a round."

The magazine was taken out a short time later. One of the juveniles, forgetting about the chambered round or not knowing that a pistol operates without an inserted magazine, pointed the weapon at Casique, believing they were "dry firing."

The juvenile squeezed the trigger, striking the victim with a single shot to the chest, police said.

The 19-year-old fled immediately after seeing the victim fall to the floor, police said.

Police responded to a 911 call requesting an ambulance for a shooting victim at 3:13 p.m. Friday, police said. Officers arrived within three minutes and immediately began giving aid, soon afterward assisted by the Prospect Heights Fire Department.

At 3:47 p.m., Casique was pronounced dead on the scene.

The Cook County medical examiner's office ruled the death a homicide caused by a gunshot wound to the chest.

At the beginning of the investigation over the weekend, police said, the three juvenile witnesses implicated the 19-year-old as the shooter.

Detectives visited the 19-year-old's home on Saturday morning and took him into custody. Although he admitted to running from the apartment out of fear, he denied pointing and shooting the gun. He was released from custody.

That afternoon, the three juvenile witnesses and their parents were called back to the police station. One of the juveniles implicated another, who then gave a different statement and confessed to being the shooter. That juvenile was taken to the Juvenile Detention Center in Chicago.

"All evidence, statements and the crime scene point to this incident being a tragic accident," Prospect Heights police said in a statement.

A GoFundMe account was created by Eric Casique's sister, Estephanie Reinoso, to pay for the funeral and other expenses.

On the GoFundMe page (gofundme.com/f/ghmkw-funeral-and-other-expenses), Reinoso wrote that her brother "was a young teenager that was always that one person that will make you smile. Always being there for people when they most needed it. He always tried to help on how what he could, he was a great loving brother."

She wrote the family needed help because "my mother isn't working at the moment due to recently getting a gall bladder surgery."

On Monday, Reinoso said her brother "would light up a room when he walked in."

She said Eric was smart and especially good at math. His goal, she said, was to be an architect. "He wanted to build my mom a house."

He was particularly close to his mother. On the day Eric was killed, his sister said, he told his mother before leaving home, "I'll be back, Mom. I'll be back."

"And he never got back home," his sister said.