A 13-year-old boy was shot in the leg Tuesday evening while inside a residence in the 7300 block of South Emerald Avenue in Englewood, and police say no one is in custody. The shooting happened around 5:46 p.m., and the boy was taken to Comer Children's Hospital in good condition.
According to police, the boy was shot while inside the Englewood home, though details about what led up to the gunfire have not been released. The incident was first reported by the Chicago Sun-Times. No arrests had been announced as of the latest update.
A Block With a Violent Recent History
The 7300 block of South Emerald Avenue has seen repeated gun violence in recent years. In December 2025, a 22-year-old man was critically injured after being shot in the chest on the sidewalk along the same block, according to CBS News, during a weekend of violence that left two dead and 12 injured citywide. Years earlier, in February 2022, a shooting on the same block fatally wounded a 32-year-old woman and a 36-year-old man, as reported by FOX 32 Chicago, with the woman dying the day of the attack and the man succumbing to his injuries a week later.
The shooting also falls within a broader pattern of juvenile gun violence across Englewood this summer. On July 28, a 15-year-old boy was shot in the back in the nearby 7000 block of South Hermitage Avenue and was likewise taken to Comer Children's Hospital in good condition, with Hoodline reporting that no arrests had been made after officers found him late at night. Just a day before this latest shooting, Hoodline also reported an 11-year-old wounded in a drive-by that also injured two men riding in a white SUV.
Jurisdiction and Investigation
The 7300 block of South Emerald Avenue falls under the jurisdiction of the Chicago Police Department's 7th (Englewood) District, headquartered at 1438 West 63rd Street and covering both the Englewood and West Englewood communities. Violent crime investigations in the area, including shootings like this one, are typically directed out of the department's Area One Detective headquarters on South Wentworth Avenue, which leads felony violent crime cases across multiple South Side police districts.
Care and Support at Comer Children's
Comer Children's Hospital in Hyde Park, where the boy was taken, is the only designated Level 1 Pediatric Trauma Center on Chicago's South Side, operating as a 172-bed freestanding facility on the University of Chicago medical campus, per UChicago Medicine. The hospital also runs an integrated Violence Recovery Program that provides 24/7 crisis intervention, social work support, and trauma-informed care to injured youth and their families. Launched in 2018, the program connects families to violence recovery specialists and ongoing mental health care during and after emergency treatment.
Rising Numbers, Rising Anxiety
The shooting comes amid a citywide uptick in gun violence following a historic low in 2025. Chicago recorded 686 shooting incidents and 210 homicides through the first six months of 2026, a 4% increase in shootings compared to the same period last year, according to WTTW News, even after the city logged 416 homicides in 2025, its lowest annual total since 1965.
Public anxiety has climbed alongside those numbers. A July 2026 poll conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago found that 44% of Chicago residents believed violent crime had increased this year, with more than half of Black and Hispanic residents reporting they felt less safe, even though overall violence remains below peak pandemic-era levels.
That anxiety carries a documented psychological toll on young people in affected neighborhoods. Research from the University of Chicago Crime Lab indicates that exposure to community gun violence is linked to significant mental health impacts among Chicago youth, with an estimated 38% of female public high school students showing signs of PTSD. Local institutions have partnered with schools and community organizations to offer trauma-informed interventions for young people navigating the aftermath of such violence.
