A 16-year-old boy was brutally shot while walking to school in North Lawndale, as per a chilling account by the Chicago Sun-Times. Moments after leaving his home, the teen was targeted by an assailant firing from a passing black Ford Explorer at approximately 9:30 a.m. near the 1200 block of South Albany Avenue.
This chilling incident occurred only days apart from another shooting that injured a 16-year-old boy in Chicago's Little Village neighborhood. ABC7 Chicago reports the teenager suffered multiple gunshot wounds during the daytime attack just after 12:30 p.m. The boy was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in serious condition, renewing fears among a city already grappling with omnipresent gun violence.
Dana Pulliam faced the unimaginable as her youngest son dialed her number, screaming that he had been shot. "I heard the shots like five minutes after he had left, and then he was calling me screaming and saying he was shot," Pulliam recounted in a statement obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times. At the scene, school officials and students were battling the chaos, with many children fleeing into the school for cover.
As the community reels, an analysis by WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times brings to light a haunting spike in fatal shootings near schools in the previous year. A city that is trying to desperately heal from the severe trauma of such violence, North Lawndale College Prep, for instance, has seen its share of drive-by shootings affecting Pulliam's family thrice. "To have this happen to me for a third time, I’m emotional and I’m traumatized," she told the Chicago Sun-Times.
Meanwhile, as Chicagoans call for peace and safety, an employee manning the doors at Super Savings Food and Liquor in Irving Park was shot in what marked an attempted robbery by a masked group. This incident is one in a stream of at least nine instances carried out by assailants within the span of six hours, according to ABC7 Chicago. Customers and neighbors alike are expressing their dismay, and plans, such as installing security cameras, are being considered for both safety and in an effort to ward off future tragedies.
