A 34-year-old woman who was seven months pregnant was shot multiple times late Friday night as she stood outside in Chicago's Lawndale neighborhood, struck in the back and leg when a dark-colored SUV rolled past and someone inside opened fire. She was rushed to Stroger Hospital in serious condition, and as of Saturday, police had not released a suspect description, identified a motive, or announced an arrest.
Officers responded to a report of a shooting in the 1400 block of South Karlov Avenue at about 11:15 p.m. Friday, according to FOX 32 Chicago. Police told the station the woman was outside when the SUV drove past and someone inside fired at her, leaving her with multiple gunshot wounds before she was taken to the hospital.
CWB Chicago reported additional detail on the attack, noting that three men were inside the SUV when it pulled up near the woman before someone fired and the vehicle sped off southbound. Officers who arrived applied a tourniquet and performed other lifesaving measures before paramedics got her to the hospital, and investigators recovered five shell casings in the street nearby.
A Gap Between the Shots and the Response
Perhaps the most troubling detail to emerge involves timing. While police pegged the shooting at around 11:15 p.m., radio traffic reviewed by the outlet indicates the woman first contacted 911 at least 30 minutes earlier. Her initial call was logged only as an open line, and when a 911 operator tried calling her back twice, nobody answered; she reportedly called again roughly three minutes later.
The same report notes that the block of South Karlov Avenue used to be covered around the clock by the city's ShotSpotter gunfire-detection network, which was disconnected in 2024. The outlet says it has identified 96 cases involving shooting victims who appeared to face lengthy waits for emergency help in areas that once had ShotSpotter coverage, and reported that the fatality rate among those delayed-response cases was 61%, compared with roughly 21% for people shot in Chicago that year.
A West Side Already on Edge
The shooting lands amid a documented rise in gun violence across parts of Chicago's West Side. Block Club Chicago reported that since July 29, 49 people had been shot in the Austin, North Lawndale, and East and West Garfield Park community areas combined, a nearly 20 percent jump over the same period the year before. East and West Garfield Park alone saw 17 of those victims, a nearly 42 percent increase. Still, the outlet noted that citywide, shooting victims across the four community areas largely making up the West Side were actually down 5 percent for the year, with 258 victims compared to 272 over the same stretch the previous year.
Other neighborhoods on the city's South and West Sides have also seen sharp spikes this year. The Chicago Tribune reported that the Deering District recorded 60 shootings since the start of 2026, with homicides there up 183% compared to the same period in 2025, and the broader CPD Area 1 that includes Deering seeing a 68% homicide increase. Even so, the Tribune noted that shootings and homicides citywide remained far lower year-to-date in 2026 than in 2022, a trend the University of Chicago Crime Lab also found in its 2025 year-end analysis, which described homicides, shootings and robberies as down substantially even as the burden of violence continued to fall unevenly across communities.
Pattern of Drive-By Shootings in Lawndale
Friday's shooting echoes another drive-by just months earlier in nearby South Lawndale. A 16-year-old boy was fatally shot in August while standing outside and talking on his phone in the 2600 block of South Hamlin Avenue around 11:10 p.m., according to the Chicago Sun-Times. In that case, a back-seat passenger in a dark-colored SUV allegedly opened fire before the vehicle fled south; the boy was struck in the head and chest and pronounced dead at Mount Sinai Hospital. Police reported no arrests in that shooting either, with Area 4 detectives handling the investigation.
No arrests have been announced in Friday's shooting, and Chicago police have not said what led to the attack on South Karlov Avenue. The woman remained in serious condition at Stroger Hospital as the investigation continued.
