PEORIA — When Antonio Johnson Jr. earned certification in CPR and other life-saving measures, he never pictured trying to use it on his cousin and lifelong friend.
But when he saw Jarvis Allison Jr. in a room on the fourth floor at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center, he reacted the only way he could think of on a late April night. The young man with whom he was raised “like brothers” was laying there with a gunshot wound to the head suffered at Laura Bradley Park.
“As we got to the hospital, they let us in the room to see him, and they told me he wasn’t alive anymore,” Johnson said. “I couldn’t accept it. I started giving him CPR. I tried to do everything to get him back. I just walked in and prayed and did CPR. I never asked why this happened. I just told God I needed him. I told God we can’t go through another death in our family.
“They pulled me out of the room. They took me away from him.”
Johnson is only 17. But he’s no ordinary teenager. He became certified in CPR and first aid training in eighth grade because he was a track coach for grade-schoolers. He is a site coordinator for an after-care program at Hines Primary School in Peoria.
He is trained in CPR and knows that if he is a lone responder he is to administer 30 chest compressions and then deliver two breaths. He knows the drill. Even for Jarvis Allison Jr., who was already gone.
“I know it was grief that made me do that, but I had to let grief come,” Johnson Jr. said. “I can not lose myself because of grief. I tell myself the person is in Heaven with God. They aren’t suffering. They are at peace. And every day, I have to break the generational trauma in this family. If I stop, grief will come in.
“It will find me.”
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Antonio Johnson Jr. and Jarvis Allison Jr. were first cousins, both growing up on Peoria’s South Lydia Avenue together.
“More like a brother, that’s what he was to me,” Johnson said. “We all grew up at my grandmother’s house from the time we were born. Grandma Pete’s house. We were raised together.”
Johnson has three sisters and three brothers, one of seven children in a family headed by his mom, Latice Baker, and his father, Antonio, who he is named after.
Allison Jr., was survived by his brothers, Terrance Jackson, Tevan Jackson, and Malique Mayze; sisters, Jenise Allison, Jakazah Allison, Jewel Allison, Jontasia Allison, and Makaya Mayze; and numerous step-siblings.
“He was so family oriented,” Johnson said. “Always with us. Very protective. His siblings and nieces and nephews and cousins, loved them and always very protective.”
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But nothing protected Allison from a bullet on April 26, 2026 in Laura Bradley Park in what was one of three separate shootings around Peoria that day.
Allison was initially conscious following the shooting around 7:15 p.m., but his condition rapidly deteriorated, according to Peoria County coroner Jamie Harwood. He was transported to OSF HealthCare Saint Francis Medical Center in grave condition and was pronounced dead at 11:41 p.m.
An autopsy showed Allison suffered a gunshot wound of the head and “suffered injuries that were incompatible with life,” the coroner reported.
“We’re still searching for answers,” Johnson said. “We don’t know why he was there, why this happened. It’s a huge trauma for all of us.”
Peoria police spokeswoman Semone Roth told the Journal Star there were no updates on the case.
“Still a very active investigation,” she said Thursday, May 21, nearly a month after the shooting.
Johnson lost a beloved cousin, Arita Brown, to cancer on April 7. He says doctors initially told her not to worry, that it was beatable. Then she deteriorated quickly. He also lost loved ones in Matthew Day and Mattie Lee Baker, all since November.
When he graduated from Manual High School on May 16, Johnson wore a sash bearing photos of all of them as a memorial. “I wanted all of them to take the walk with me,” he said.
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Johnson, a top student, is headed to college in Louisville next fall.
At Manual, he was the boys track team co-captain under head coach Harvey Burnett, running the 400 and 4×400 relay. He started running organized track in eighth grade, but the love for it was there long before that.
“I was always running,” Johnson said. “I’d run in flip-flops up and down the street from the time I was 7.”
Johnson went on to be a drum major at Manual. And a student board member, and a student council spirit leader.
He and Allison loved to bowl together at the old Landmark Lanes. Johnson carried an average in the 190s. Better than Allison but he says he also bowled more often.
Allison left Manual High School and was taking online classes at Knoxville Center for Student Success.
Johnson said Allison proudly showed him his latest report card. They had talked since they were kids about wanting to walk across the graduation stage together at Manual someday.
Johnson made that walk Saturday, a mix of triumph, elation and grief.
“Jarvis wasn’t there,” Johnson said. “It hurt.”
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Jarvis Allison Jr. never made it out of that hospital room alive.
“The last time we talked we were at my Auntie Toosie’s house on Proctor,” Johnson said. “She had cooked a big dinner. We spent that time laughing and going over memories. One last quality time. I saw him couple weeks before he died. That was the last time I ever saw him.”
He cried at the funeral. He helped those who were in so much grief they didn’t want to approach the casket. He took each person up there.
“I did that, because once they close it and put it in the ground there’s no second chance,” Johnson said.
So he carries on. Coaches kids. Prepares for college. He’s creating his life.
“I think, looking back, I just have to let grief come,” Johnson said. “I was driving in my car a couple days ago. I have obituaries of Jarvis and Arita clipped out and tucked in my sun visor. Jarvis’ obituary slipped out while I was driving and fell right on my face. It’s like he was there, reminding me.
“A lot of kids my age think it’s OK to be in the streets. They think it owes them something. They think there’s something to be gained from it. But when you choose the streets, there’s only three or four things that can happen to you.
“Jail or dead are two of them.”
Dave Eminian is the Journal Star senior writer and sports columnist, and covers Bradley men’s basketball, the Rivermen and Chiefs. He writes the Cleve In The Eve sports column for pjstar.com. He can be reached at deminian@pjstar.com. Follow him on X.com @icetimecleve.
This article originally appeared on Journal Star: ‘I couldn’t accept it’: Teen tried CPR on cousin who was shot in Peoria
Reporting by Dave Eminian, Peoria Journal Star / Journal Star
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