A 17-year-old boy was released without charges after Chicago police arrested him for questioning regarding the killings of an Uber driver and his passenger, an aspiring college basketball player, in the East Garfield Park neighborhood earlier this month.
Police originally arrested the boy on Chicago’s West Side Wednesday afternoon, sources said, about a week after the shooting deaths of Jassen Cho, 38, and Damarion Johnson, 18.
Cho, a financial analyst who drove rideshare on the side, was driving in the 200 block of North Homan Avenue the evening of May 7 when someone in a gray SUV pulled up alongside the car and opened fire on him and Johnson, who was in the rear passenger seat.
Cho was shot in the arm while Johnson was shot multiple times throughout his body, according to a police report. Both men were pronounced dead within a half-hour of the shooting.
Cho had been looking forward to his first anniversary with his girlfriend at the time he was killed. Johnson, a recent transfer and a senior at Christ the King Jesuit College Prep in Austin, had been preparing for a college trip to Wisconsin and had expected to finalize an agreement to play basketball for a school there, according to his coach.
“Things were lining up for him,” Johnson’s coach said. “The future was lining up. I think he felt that and knew that. That’s why this is so tragic.”
Chicago police said Friday that Harrison Area (Area 4) homicide detectives were still investigating the case.
