Kiante Albert, an 18-year-old Black male, was struck by gunfire while driving on Sauk Trail near Lester Road in south suburban Park Forest on the evening of November 23, 2017.
Park Forest police said someone in another vehicle opened fire around 7:40 p.m., hitting the 18-year-old in the upper torso as he traveled through the area.
Officers and paramedics found him in the 0–100 block of McCarthy Road and rushed him to Franciscan Health Olympia Fields, where he was pronounced dead at
8:31 p.m.
An autopsy determined he died of a gunshot wound to the chest, and authorities noted he lived less than a mile from where the shooting occurred. Investigators said the attack was not random.
Detectives quickly developed a timeline indicating the violence followed a verbal altercation minutes earlier at a local business.
With assistance from the Illinois State Police Crime Scene Investigation Unit and the South Suburban Major Crimes Task Force, investigators identified a suspect vehicle and secured a search warrant that yielded evidence in the case.
Police publicly appealed for information as they worked the holiday-night homicide.
Within weeks, arrest warrants were issued for two boys, ages 16 and 17, each charged with first-degree murder.
According to police and subsequent reporting, the 17-year-old was taken into custody on December 4, 2017, in Merrillville, Indiana, during an unrelated incident, and the 16-year-old was arrested on December 10, 2017, at a hotel in Houston, Texas.
Both were held pending extradition to Illinois, and authorities did not publicly release their names because they were juveniles.
Public memorial listings record the date of death as November 24, 2017, and list Waukegan, Illinois, while contemporaneous police reports and news coverage place the shooting and death in Park Forest on the night of November 23, 2017.
