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Yasmin Perez, 25, died on Tuesday morning, days after her boyfriend Gyovanni Arzuaga
The mother of two who was shot and beaten in the street in Chicago while celebrating Puerto Rican Day has died from her injuries.
Yasmin Perez, 25, passed away on Tuesday morning, days after her boyfriend Gyovanni Arzuaga perished from injuries sustained during the brutal ambush on Saturday, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
The attack unfolded during Chicago’s Puerto Rican Day parade, which Perez and Arzuaga participated in, flying a large Puerto Rican flag from their vehicle.
That previously-planned celebration happened to fall on June 19 this year, which days earlier had been declared a federal holiday celebrating the end of slavery in the U.S.
Though the motive in the attack was unclear, police said that the couple were involved in a minor car crash of some kind, and that a crowd surrounded their vehicle and attacked them.
The couple had two children: Sofiya and Jaden, who will be 1 year old on Friday
Mourners gather to remember Gyovanni Arzuaga, 24, and Yasmin Perez, 25, at a makeshift memorial at the location where both were shot during an altercation
The attack unfolded during Chicago’s Puerto Rican Day parade, which Perez and Arzuaga participated in, flying a large Puerto Rican flag from their vehicle
The couple had two children: Sofiya and Jaden, who will be 1 year old on Friday, according to WFLD-TV.
‘They first met each other at a party and it was over with from there. They fell in love with each other and they spent years together. They made a family together,’ the couple’s friend Jae Pacheco told the station.
Friends have launched a GoFundMe campaign to help support the couple’s young children.
Video that circulated on social media appears to show the couple being dragged from the car and shot as they lay in the street.
The attack occurred around 9.15pm on Saturday near the 3200 block of West Division in the Humboldt Park neighborhood.
The Puerto Rican Day parade had taken place earlier in the evening on West Division, which forms the boundary between several census tracts that are overwhelmingly Hispanic, and several that are majority black.
Video that circulated on social media appears to show the couple being dragged from the car and shot as they lay in the street
The attack occurred around 9.15pm on Saturday near the 3200 block of West Division in the Humboldt Park neighborhood
It came during a weekend of shocking violence in Chicago, with 38 shooting incidents, 54 shooting victims and eight murders from 6pm Friday to midnight on Sunday, according to police.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Monday vowed to hunt down everyone involved in the ‘horrific’ weekend shooting that left Perez and Arzuaga dead.
‘You know who you are. People know who you are,’ Lightfoot said in a warning to the perpetrators.
‘You need to turn yourself in because we are gonna spare no resource whatsoever to find them and you and bring you to justice and make sure that these people who created such brazen chaos and harm are held in custody ’til they see their day in court,’ the mayor said.
Lightfoot speculated that the attack ‘started with a car accident’.
Mourners gather to remember the couple at a makeshift memorial at the location where both were shot during an altercation as they celebrated their Puerto Rican heritage Saturday
Community members are seen mourning the senseless attack at a makeshift memorial
The mayor said police have ‘promising leads’ after tips from the community and have identified a suspect who ‘did the shooting,’ adding that she hopes he will soon be in custody.
But the mayor vowed that the others involved in the attack would also be held accountable.
‘As you saw from the horrific video, it wasn’t just one person. There’s one person who dealt the fatal shot,’ the mayor said.
‘But there were others who were standing by who dragged that poor woman out of the car. The man who was killed literally used his body as a shield and paid for that with his life,’ the mayor said.
