Ten-year-old Gustavo Garcia was in a car with his stepfather and another man on Friday night, when another car pulled up beside it and opened fire.
The stepfather tried to speed away and after several blocks found a police officer at the scene of a fatal motorcycle accident. The boy was pronounced dead shortly upon arrival at Comers Children's Hospital.
He left behind a wife, three children, and a many more people who depended on him for help.
"People are so cold-hearted. How could you take somebody's life? He helped everybody. I just don't understand," Cooper's niece, Patricia Carter, told WLS-TV.
According to AP, detectives are trying to discern whether he was targeted or a victim of a random shooting.
Chicago has the most murders in the country, having taken 787 victims last year, according to Chicago Tribune's count. The violence, however, is mainly concentrated in the western and southern neighborhoods where gang violence is rampant.