Neighbors Mourn Slain Morgan Park Barber

Neighbors are mourning a Morgan Park barber who was shot to death near his home early Thursday morning.

Police said that Paul King, 51, was leaving a house around 1:20 a.m. in the 1300 block of West 108th Place with a friend, when a man emerged from some bushes and shot King in the back and chest.

King collapsed and died in the street, almost within sight of where his 7-year-old son, Elijah, was shot and seriously wounded in May, a neighbor told the Chicago Tribune.

Residents recalled King as a well-known barber who would cut children’s hair for free if he knew their families couldn’t afford to pay. More than anything else he loved his kids.

“If he (wasn’t) walking around to get them candy, he was walking them to school,” resident Kimberly Swift told the paper, who knew King for 13 years. “That’s all I’ve seen him do, is take care of his kids.”

Family members think King was lured out of his house and ambushed. The shooting happened so quickly that no one got a look at the shooter, ABC 7 Chicago reported.

“We need justice because he’s a good man. He never did nothing wrong to hurt nobody. If anything, he helping everybody,” Keondra Lee told ABC-7, whose family took King in when he fell on hard times.

Investigators recovered six shell casings at the scene, but had no one in custody.