The family of a southwest suburban teen fatally shot last week on the West Side found out about the shooting through a safety app, a police report said.
Trevon Wright, an 18-year-old from Plainfield, was found fatally wounded on the 900 block of South Keeler Avenue in the West Garfield Park neighborhood shortly before 8:30 a.m. Saturday morning, according to Chicago police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Wright’s father told police that his son got picked up in Plainfield on Friday night for a party in Chicago, according to the police report obtained by the Tribune. When Wright did not come back home, his family checked his last known location and saw that it was in the same area of a shooting on the Citizen app, prompting them to travel out to the address where Wright’s body was found, the report said.
Wright’s father declined an interview.
The Citizen app alerts users to emergencies reported to 911 in “real-time,” according to the app’s website. The platform is essentially a transcription service for emergency radio, employing a team of people to listen to police, fire and emergency radio transmissions that get submitted to the app, according to a 2019 New York Times report.
A witness told police that she heard gunshots the night before around 9:30 p.m. but didn’t call 911 because she thought the shots were down the block, the report said. Another witness found Wright lying on the ground while walking his dog the following morning.
The medical examiner’s office ruled that Wright died of multiple gunshot wounds in a homicide. No suspects are in custody, according to police.
Tribune reporter Caroline Kubzansky contributed.
