To loved ones, he was a beam of light. To his school community, he was a gift.
Caleb Westbrook, a 15-year-old freshman described as having an infectious personality, was killed Tuesday afternoon while walking home from his school, Rauner College Prep in the West Town neighborhood. Those who loved him were still coming to grips with his death this week.
“Everyone could be at their darkest moment and he would light everyone up,” said Amelia Akordor, 14, who considered Caleb her brother. “He basically put everyone before himself.”
Family and friends described the teen as a son, a brother, a classmate, and a teammate on the Garfield Park Gators Youth Football team.
Amelia Akordor, 14, helps her mother, Stephanie Akordor, place items at a memorial for Caleb Westbrook, at a bus stop on the corner of North Greenview and West Chicago avenues, Jan. 19, 2022, in Chicago. Caleb was shot Tuesday afternoon while waiting for a bus to go home, according to Stephanie Akordor. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)
Akordor said she met Caleb when the two were 5 and 6 years old. She was overcome with emotion when describing their bond.
“He always referred to me as his sister no matter where we went,” Akordor said. “We pretty much couldn’t be separated.”
Caleb was walking just after 1 p.m. in the 800 block of North Greenview Avenue, not far from the school, when an armed man approached him and fired shots, police have said. He was struck in the chest and the left arm and pronounced dead later at Stroger Hospital.
No one has been charged in the case and Caleb’s friends had no clue about a motive or who would want to harm him. He was one of five children under the age of 17 who was struck by gunfire in Chicago Tuesday.
Caleb Westbrook, a 15-year-old high freshman, was shot and killed on Jan. 18, 2022, while walking home from Rauner College Prep high school in the West Town neighborhood. (Family photo)
Akordor said she met Caleb when the two were living in the same apartment building in the Cabrini Green neighborhood. At the time, Westbrook lived with his grandmother one floor down from Akordor and her mother, Stephanie Akordor, who became like a mother to Caleb.
“He would come to my house all the time,” Akordor said. " He looked up to my mom and he leaned on her a lot, we became family.”
The two kids saw each other every day. Like clockwork, Caleb would be ready to spend afternoons with Akordor when the school day was done.
“He would always come over and eat ice cream sandwiches,” Akordor said. “I remember I would come home from school and go upstairs and there would be no ice cream sandwiches, like he would eat the whole box.”
Akordor said she remembers the young man she considered a brother having two main loves: football and his grandmother, who now lives in New Orleans.
“His grandma was his backbone,” Akordor said. “Everything was, ‘my grandma, my grandma.”
She will be driving up to Chicago from New Orleans on Friday.
Brenden Bedell, the principal of Rauner College Prep, said Westbrook brought light and laughter to those around him through his humor and positive energy.
“He was filled with personality and loved cracking a joke,” Bedell said in a written statement. “Caleb Westbrook was such a gift to his fellow scholars and the staff at Rauner College Prep, his classmates, his teachers, and the entire Wildcat community will miss him dearly.”
‘He would light everyone up’: Loved ones of 15-year-old Caleb Westbrook mourn his death after he was shot walking from school
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