Chicago boy, 13, featured in anti-violence campaign shot in back Local Chicago boy, 13, featured in anti-violence campaign shot in back CHICAGO (FOX 32 / AP) — A Chicago seventh-grader featured in an anti-violence campaign was shot in the back by a stray bullet outside his home. The boy, Zarriel Trotter, was struck by a stray bullet after two groups of youths began a “heated argument” Friday night on the city’s West Side and one person pulled out a handgun and started firing, Officer Jose Estrada said. He underwent surgery early Saturday and by the afternoon remained in critical condition at Mount Sinai Hospital. "I don't want to live around in my community where I got to keep on hearing and hearing people keep on getting shot, people keep on getting killed," the seventh-grader, known by friends and family as Zari, said in the public service announcement titled "Black is Human." Advertisement Continue reading the main story 
 
 A grim statistic appears at the start of the one-minute video in which he appears: “The leading cause of death for black boys and teens: homicide.” 
 
 The video ends with the statement, “The loss of a black boy is a loss for America.” 
 
 Elizabeth Jamison-Dunn, the principal of Catalyst Circle Rock Charter School, where Zarriel is in the seventh grade, said in an interview with The Chicago Tribune over the weekend that the boy was recovering in the hospital and had not been able to speak yet. Elizabeth Jamison-Dunn, principal of Catalyst Circle Rock Charter School where the teen goes to school, says he was one of several third- through eighth-grade boys who were interviewed last year as part of the anti-violence campaign. It would be impossible to narrow it down.” 
 
 Burrell Communications Group, which develops productions that focus on social problems affecting the black population, was recognized with an Advocacy Media award from the American Advertising Federation this month for “Black Is Human.” 
 
 “Our hearts go out to Zarriel and his family,” the company said on its Facebook page. On Saturday, Jamison-Dunn said: "I'm praying for him, praying for his speedy recovery." “He was not the intended target,” Officer Estrada said. Two groups of people got into a heated argument on the street when a male assailant from one of the groups pulled out a gun and fired shots, said Officer Veejay Zala, a Chicago police spokesman. Crime scene tape lies in the grass March 26, 2016, in the 5500 block of West Jackson Boulevard in Chicago's South Austin neighborhood, near where 13-year-old Zarriel Trotter, inset, was shot the night before. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune) (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune) 
 
 "It was disheartening," she said about the shooting, adding that Zari's attack was the second time in about a week that gun violence has struck near the school. “Every morning he greets me with a big smile on his face, which makes my day,” Ms. Jamison-Dunn said.
– "I don't want to live around my community where I got to keep on hearing and hearing people keep on getting shot, people keep on getting killed," Zarriel Trotter said in a PSA filmed at Chicago's Catalyst Circle Rock Charter School last year. He is currently recovering in a hospital after being hit by a stray bullet in Chicago's Austin neighborhood on Friday. The boy's great-uncle says the 13-year-old was walking home from playing basketball with friends when he came upon two groups of youths arguing around 8:30pm, per Fox 32 and the Chicago Tribune. A male then opened fire and Zarriel was hit in the lower back, police say. He was listed in critical condition on Saturday after an emergency surgery, though authorities say he is slowly improving. "He was not the intended target," an officer tells the New York Times. "He was standing on the sidewalk." "We're all praying he stays strong," adds Zarriel's school principal, who notes the seventh-grader—with a "positive energy that's contagious"—has yet to speak. "I never think that he would get shot," says a friend of Zarriel, but "when it's night time people be shooting out here and I think if I come outside, they start shooting," he says. The Chicago Sun-Times reports Zarriel is the 71st person shot in Austin this year. In his PSA interview, he had this advice for those living a life of violence: "Can you please just stop killing people?" he says. "Handle what you got to handle with your words instead of your fists."