A 14-year-old is facing murder charges for assaulting and causing the death of a man in a Chicago subway station.
Bernardo Gómez, 26, was waiting for the train last Tuesday afternoon at the Cicero station on West Lake Street when a person hit him in the head, according to local authorities.
He was taken to a hospital, where he died the next day.
Gómez was about to celebrate his birthday and aspired to be a police officer.
"We just want to share his story so this doesn't keep happening to people's children and siblings," his younger sister Carla Torres told the Chicago Sun Times.
Investigators told the family that the assailant kicked the cane the victim was using after suffering an injury, and began beating him for no apparent reason, according to the publication, which added that, according to the family, none of those present in the station platform intervened to stop him.
Gómez's mother, Araceli Ocampo, added that if her son had witnessed such an incident, he "would have done something."
[Police stopped a mother's car with a broken window. A trail of blood led them to the body of her son in the trunk]
The alleged perpetrator of the assault was arrested last Thursday and is now facing first-degree murder charges.
The victim's family says they will seek the highest penalty possible.
So far no other suspects have been arrested for this crime.
A man dies in a New York subway car after being shot in the chest
May 23, 202200:20
Gomez had recently moved from suburban Waukegan to Chicago.
He had a one-year-old son, who was in foster care, and had applied for custody of him.
His mother says that he was a good young man and that he wanted to become a police officer to help his community: "He would get angry when he saw that everyone was being robbed," Ocampo said. "He wanted to play a role in ending it."