Cornelius German told his mother he was afraid to wait for her at the bus stop because of all the shootings lately, so he asked her to meet him at a friend's.

Timika Rutledge said she and the boy's father pulled up to a home and waited Monday night, even blowing the horn for him to come out. Then they saw police arrive.

"I saw an officer and I stopped him and asked, 'Officer, what's going on?' "

"A kid got shot in the back," he told Rutledge.

"I went back there and saw my son's jacket and his gym shoes. I just bought those shoes. I saw him laying in the grass in the backyard. ... I knew it was him in the dark.

"I stayed there until they took him to the morgue," Rutledge said. "They covered him in a burgundy blanket."

Relatives said Cornelius, nicknamed Cornbread, was hanging out with friends in the backyard of a home in the 5000 block of South Evans Avenue when a dice game broke up around 9:30 p.m. Gunfire erupted and Cornelius was hit in the back.

The shooting occurred a little more than four blocks from President Barack Obama's Kenwood home. Police had no description of the shooter and reported no arrests this morning.

Rutledge said Cornelius had originally planned to meet her at a Walgreens store at 51st Street and Cottage Grove Avenue.

"We rolled through the Walgreens and he wasn't there," Rutledge said. "I guess it was a mother's instinct and I called him back and asked, 'Where are you at?' "

Cornelius said he decided to wait at a friend's instead. "I didn't stand at the bus stop because there would be shooting," Rutledge said her son told her, explaining that gangs in the area have been fighting over turf in the Bronzeville neighborhood.

So she and the boy's father pulled up to the friend's place. "His dad blew the horn. Cornbread didn't come to the car. I had a bad feeling. It was a mother's instinct."

When the officer told her a boy had been shot, "Everything in me, my whole soul, my whole body, said, 'Timika, that's your baby.' "

Rutledge said she talked to friends and was told Cornelius "was saying his good-byes, saying his parents were coming by. Gunshots rang out and he took one of the shots.

"And he said, 'I've been hit, I've been hit.' His friends were saying, 'Don't move, Cornbread, don't move. Just lay there, just lay there.'

"They said his last words were, 'Call my mama.' "

There had been a dice game in the backyard but Rutledge said Cornelius wasn't playing. "He was just waiting for us."

Police have said the shooting may be gang-related. "It was dark, it was in the backyard, shots rang out. I knew they were going to say gang-related," Rutledge said. "He hung out with gang members but I don't think he was part of a gang."

"I'm not psychic. . .but I'm real noseym" she said. "I'm going to find something. Somebody's going to tell something about my baby."

On Tuesday, teenagers trickled in and out of the modest German family home. Some wiped away tears as they privately expressed condolences to the boy's father.

Rutledge said her son "was very charming, very charismatic. When he would enter a room, his smile would radiate. He wasn't selfish, he was kind."

He had graduated 8th grade from Richard Milburn Alternative School and was a freshman at Kenwood Academy, his mother said. "He liked math. He got it, he really got it."

Cornelius had played football for the Washington Park Redskins and wanted to go on to be a football player.

The boy's aunt, Kameisha Andrews, called a shooting a "tragedy."

"He was just 15 years old," she said. "He was a smart kid, very bright. He was a comedian, he wanted to be a rapper. If you were down and out, he'd say silly things to make you laugh. That's the kind of kid he was."

She last saw him Friday. "I guess God sent him to me. I was going through something and he came by and said, "Auntie, what's wrong?"

"He cheered me up when he came out here," said Andrews, who lives a few doors down from Obama's home. Cornelius had lived there until a year or so ago.

Cornelius' cousin, Brittany Standford, also 15, said the shooting makes her afraid to go to school.

"We were the same age. It's sad, a 15-year-old kid can't go home. It makes me mad. I'm afraid to go to school. It's crazy."

Cornelius was shot just four blocks west of the Obama family home, but in a vastly different neighborhood.

The shooting took place on a tucked away block of multi-unit apartment buildings and newly developed townhouses across from Washington Park.

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Twitter: @RosemarySobol1

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