13-Year-Old Fatally Shot In Chicago After Facebook Confrontation, Police Say

Chicago parents are mourning the death of their 13-year-old son after he was shot Sunday night, allegedly as the result of a confrontation between his sisters and another group concerning a social media post.

Anthony Diaz was shot multiple times around 10 p.m. Sunday in Chicago’s Belmont Cragin neighborhood, police told the Chicago Tribune. Authorities said Diaz had been using his cell phone to record an argument -- between his two older sisters, ages 15 and 17, and a group of individuals -- related to a Facebook posting. He was shot multiple times in the left side of his body about a block away from his home.

The group scattered after the shots rang out and, according to DNAinfo Chicago, Anthony’s sisters didn’t realize their brother wasn’t with them until they returned home. Anthony was pronounced dead at Mount Sinai Hospital about an hour after the shooting.

Ralph Otero, Anthony’s stepfather, told NBC Chicago the family had moved to the area from the Hermosa neighborhood last November in order to be in an area of the city they perceived as safer.

Otero told the station his son, an eighth-grader at Burbank Elementary, was “a good student" and "didn’t give us any headaches.”

An investigation into the shooting is ongoing. No one is in custody, according to DNAinfo.

The Chicago Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Huffington Post.

Sunday’s fatal shooting comes following news that shootings and homicides in Chicago increased in January compared to the same month last year.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, police logged 28 murders in January, a 40 percent increase from the 20 murders logged in January 2014, though a decreased number from the number of killings reported in the city in both 2013 (40) and 2012 (38).