by DCG
From NY Post: A cancer survivor was killed by a stray bullet in Chicago over the weekend — just hours after arriving in the city to pursue his Ph.D., according to a new report.
Shane Colombo got caught in the crossfire during a fight between two people in the Rogers Park neighborhood around 8:25 p.m. Sunday, ABC News reported.
The 25-year-old’s heartbroken mother, Tonya, told the network that he was running an errand to buy clothes hangers when he was killed.
“I was very concerned about him coming out here, and he was killed within four hours of being in the city, four hours of stepping off that plane,” she said, moments after identifying her son’s body at the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office. “I put him on a plane that morning at 10 a.m. [in California] and I kissed him goodbye, and that was the last time I saw him alive.”
Colombo had just moved to the Windy City to live with his fiancé, Vincent Perez, and was set to attend Northwestern University to pursue his Ph.D. in clinical psychology.
“He was so passionate about what he was doing,” Tonya said. “He was going to be a doctor. He wanted to do clinical research. He wanted to give people answers.”
Before Chicago, Colombo lived in New York and worked as a researcher at Columbia University’s Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Lab, the mom said.
Colombo, who graduated from San Francisco State University in 2016 with a bachelor’s degree, was 15 years old when he was diagnosed with lymphoma.
“He beat cancer and he pushed himself through high school after missing a year,” Tonya said. “He pushed himself through college on his own. And came to Chicago to get his Ph.D. He got a full scholarship to Northwestern. He didn’t depend on me to go to school. He depended on himself.”
Colombo was one of six people gunned down in Chicago over Labor Day weekend. He was shot once in the abdomen and taken to Saint Francis Hospital, where he died.
Police are trying to identify the suspects in his shooting. No arrests have been made.