'He didn't deserve' to be shot to death

'He didn't deserve' to be shot to death
Family grieves as teen's playful fight turns deadly
By Kayce T. Ataiyero | Chicago Tribune reporter
September 23, 2008


Donovan Morris-Beverly's family is used to planning parties, not funerals.

But on Monday, his family was planning a funeral for him. There were memorial T-shirts and photo collages to be printed, music to be selected, flowers to be chosen to bury the 16-year-old whose life was stilled by gun violence Saturday night. And there were words to be said about him, but his mother, Katrina Woods couldn't find them.

"I just don't understand why they could kill him like that," Woods said Monday from her home in Evergreen Park. "My son was looking forward to going to college. He . . . "

Woods stopped mid-sentence, her eyes welling with tears as she, like other Chicago-area mothers before her, struggled to make sense of the senseless.

Morris-Beverly, a junior at Hillside Academy in Hillside, died after being shot multiple times at 11 p.m. in the 4200 block of West Kamerling Avenue in Humboldt Park. The teenager, the fifth of eight children, was visiting friends in his old neighborhood when a playful fight turned deadly, his family said.

During the fight, Morris-Beverly got the better of a young man he'd grown up with. The person left and returned with a gun to settle the score, according to the family.
click post title for more