#Teen activist shot dead in Chicago by friend who fired blindly at passing car

A teenage activist who was shot dead in Chicago was accidentally killed by a friend who misfired while shooting blindly at a passing car, a court has heard.

Caleb Reed, 17, a leader of the racial justice group Voices of Youth in Chicago Education (VOYCE), died in July after getting shot in the head while walking with three friends, according to the Chicago Tribune.

He was assumed to be a victim of a drive-by shooting — until video showed that one of his friends “kind of fired over his shoulder,” accidentally hitting Reed in the forehead, prosecutors said in court Tuesday.

Although someone in the car did fire back, it was only after Reed had already been cut down by his friend’s fatal bullet, the court heard.

Judge John Lyke Jr. called the shooting a “tragedy with a capital T” — noting that accused killer Genove Martin, 18, had also become involved in local youth activism, the paper said.

“He was on his way to college … if he made it there it could have changed his life,” the judge said of Martin, the Chicago Sun-Times noted.

“I typically don’t get this kind of young man charged with this kind of offense in front of me. I’m just stunned,” the judge noted.

Martin, who has no previous criminal background, was held on $300,000 bond after being charged with first-degree murder, the reports said. He had previously been a victim of gun violence, getting injured in a shooting in November, the court heard.

He could face a life sentence if convicted, prosecutors said.

VOYCE called “the amount of pain” in losing its youth leader “unimaginable.”

“What Caleb fought for was not just to end violence. He was also working tirelessly to get help for young people who need to heal from the trauma they experience as a result of that violence,” VOYCE officials said in a statement Tuesday.

“What happened to Caleb is not a unique situation. The tragic action that led to Caleb’s death is undeniably a call to invest in Black Lives.”