Greg Toppo

USATODAY

A Chicago middle-schooler who was critically injured in a street shooting over the weekend was part of an award-winning anti-violence campaign that bemoaned homicide as “the leading cause of death for black boys and teens.”

Zarriel Trotter, 13, took part in a campaign last year that featured a “Black is Human” public service announcement on YouTube, the Chicago Tribunereported.

On Friday night, Trotter was hit in the back by a stray bullet. He underwent surgery early Saturday and was reported in critical condition at Mount Sinai Hospital on Monday, ABC News reported.

Hospital officials declined to provide an update on his condition, citing federal privacy laws. Trotter's family also declined, through hospital officials, to comment.

The seventh-grader, known by friends and family as Zari, said in the public service announcement, "I don't want to live around in my community where I got to keep on hearing and hearing people keep on getting shot, people keep on getting killed."

The minute-long YouTube video begins with a 2013 statistic, apparently from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, noting that homicide is the leading cause of death for black boys and teens

It shows clips of several other African-American boys describing their feelings about homicides. The video ends with the statement: "The loss of a black boy is a loss for America."

Elizabeth Jamison-Dunn, principal of Catalyst Circle Rock Charter School, which Trotter attends, told the Tribune that he was one of several third- through eighth-grade boys interviewed last year as part of the campaign, which won an “Advocacy Media Award” earlier this month from the American Advertising Federation.

Chicago police said the shooting scene was about a half-mile from Trotter’s home. He was not the intended target.

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Jamison-Dunn said Trotter and his younger brother, a third-grader, walk to school together. "Every morning he greets me with a big smile on his face, which makes my day," she said. "I feel horrible that this happened to him."

Jamison-Dunn told ABC News, “He was just outside playing. It can create a fear (for students). We want to comfort our students and let them know we will do everything in our power to keep them safe.”