Teen shot and killed on his birthday – one hour after he posted 'I made it to 17'



ST. LOUIS - Homicide detectives with the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department are investigating the shooting death of a local teenager who was killed on his birthday.

Armond Latimore was murdered roughly an hour after he posted on Facebook about making it to his 17th birthday.

“Thru all the (expletive) I den been thru I’m just glad I can say I made it to see 17,” Latimore wrote.

Police received the call just before 1:15 p.m. Saturday afternoon in the 100 block of North Grand at Sullivan.

Authorities said Latimore was shot in the head outside a neighborhood chop suey restaurant, Bing Lau. He was rushed to a local hospital but did not survive his injuries.

In an interview with the The St. Louis Post Dispatch, Latimore's mother, Chandra Payne, said she had gone to a store to buy ice cream to go with a cake to celebrate her son's birthday when she got the call with the terrible news.

“He told me that he wanted ice cream,” she told the paper. “I went to Save A Lot and three minutes later I received the call.”

She called her son a good kid and a helper.

Authorities said the investigation was still ongoing.