A 15-year-old Tinley Park boy who was apparently accidentally shot in the head with a pellet gun, died Friday, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
The boy, identified by the examiner’s office as Steven Wilhelm of the 17700 block of South Iroquois Ter., suffered the wound Thursday night while playing with a pellet gun along with a friend, Tinley Park police said.
According to a news release issued Friday by the Tinley Park Police Department, police responded to an emergency call at about 7 p.m. Thursday. When officers arrived, they learned that the boy and another boy had been playing with the pellet gun when it apparently accidentally discharged, striking Wilhelm once in the head.
Police said Wilhelm was taken to Columbia Olympia Fields Osteopathic Hospital and Medical Center. The other youth was not injured, police said.
Police declined to provide additional details about the shooting, including who was holding the gun when it discharged or the exact location of the victim’s wound.
The incident remains under investigation, according to Tinley Park police.
A hospital spokesman also declined to provide further details Friday, saying that the victim’s family had requested that no information be given out.
Neighbors of the victim and his family said Steven Wilhelm was a student at Andrew High School in Tinley Park and that he and his family had lived on the block about five years.
