Boy, 2, critically wounded in North Lawndale shooting

by dap | Dec 26, 2024 | Chicago Tribune

A 2-year-old boy was in critical condition after being shot multiple times inside a North Lawndale apartment Thursday afternoon, according to Chicago police.

The boy was shot multiple times in the lower body just after 4 p.m., and a person of interest was in custody, police said.

By 4:30 p.m., dozens of officers gathered outside a four-flat on the 3800 block of West 14th Street. Detectives and evidence technicians walked in and out of the first-floor apartment. A woman sat on the front stairs, wrapped in a blanket and sobbing.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know.”

A second woman emerged from the crowd of officers and walked into the middle of the street to make a call.

“Your grandson got shot,” she said on the phone. “Hear me. Your grandson got shot.”

Before going to Stroger Hospital, where the boy had been taken for treatment, she told officers she wanted to retrieve something from the building. Police blocked the entrance. It was a crime scene now, they said.

Across the street, two officers briefly studied a bloody towel with cartoon drawings that someone had placed on the hood of a squad car. A passerby asked the officers if the child had survived. They didn’t know.

A woman in a pink coat hurried up to the building and told police this was her building. She wasn’t able to get inside, either, and retreated down the sidewalk. Someone gave her a sweatshirt to put on over her coat.

A short while later, an officer beckoned her over from where she stood with a group of neighbors. He said police recovered a weapon from the apartment and informed her that they needed to make sure there weren’t any other guns in inside. He handed her a clipboard.

“If you sign this consent form, it makes it a lot easier,” he said. “Do you consent?”

The woman eyed the form.

“No,” she said. “But I don’t really have a choice.”

If she didn’t sign it, the department would get a search warrant for the property, the officer said. Another man came to speak with the woman. A few minutes later, he yelled back toward the house where the officers were standing: “Bring the form!”

Detectives were investigating the shooting.

About 45 minutes earlier on Thursday, police said two men were wounded in a drive-by shooting while they stood on a sidewalk in the 800 block of North Trumbull Avenue in Humboldt Park.

One of the men, age 21, was shot in the right arm and was taken in good condition to Humboldt Park Medical Center. The other man, 33, was shot four times in the back and went on his own to Humboldt Park Medical Center, where police said he was in critical condition.

Detectives were investigating the shooting and no one was in custody.

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