Rogers Park Mourns Popular Teacher Killed By Stray Gunfire

By Stephen Gossett in News on Oct 16, 2017 3:21PM

Hundreds of mourners gathered on Saturday to remember a much-loved teacher who was killed by a stray bullet in Rogers Park on Friday.

The group gathered at Pratt and Lake to honor Cynthia Trevillion, 64, a longtime math teacher at the neighborhood's Chicago Waldorf School. “We've lost a wonderful human being—a wonderful woman being who has touched the lives of hundreds, if not thousands, of other human beings," said her husband John Trevillion, also a teacher at the school, according to CBS.

The couple was looking to get a train at the Morse Red Line CTA station near their home when the shots rang out from a white SUV at about 6:30 p.m. John was not hit, but Cynthia was struck in the head. She was rushed to Presence Saint Francis Hospital in Evanston, where she later died. Chicago police Chief of Patrol Fred Waller said Trevillion was not the intended target and was caught in the crossfire of a drive-by shooting.

A YouCaring fundraiser account has raised more than $27,000 as of Monday morning to assist John with funeral expenses. A vigil and wake are scheduled between 1 and 7 p.m. at Christian Community Church, in Lincoln Square, according to CBS. The funeral will be Tuesday at Christian Community Church (2135 W. Wilson Avenue). Waldorf canceled Tuesday classes so that students and faculty can be in attendance, the station reports.

A separate shooting in Rogers Park happened only 30 minutes prior to the drive-by. A 13-year-old boy was shot in the 2100 block of West Touhy Avenue, about a mile away from where Trevillion was killed.

Twenty-two people were shot in Chicago over the weekend, nine of them fatally, according to the Tribune.