A young girl was shot in the head Thursday afternoon in Chicago’s Grand Crossing neighborhood in an attack that also left a violence prevention worker wounded, police said.
The girl, 9, was seated in the back seat of a vehicle at the intersection of 79th Street and Maryland Avenue when the shooting occurred about 2:45 p.m., police said.
The vehicle was stopped at a stop sign when someone got out of a white truck and opened fire, striking the girl in the back of the head, according to police.
A Gresham District tactical officer drove the girl to the University of Chicago Medical Center before she was transferred to its children’s hospital, Comer, in critical condition, police said.
The man injured in the shooting is an outreach worker for Target Area Development Corp., a violence prevention organization on the South Side whose employees mediate gang conflicts and connect people with jobs, therapy and other support. The outreach worker was shot in the foot and taken to U. of C. Medical Center in good condition.
East 79th Street was shut down between Cottage Grove and Maryland avenues for nearly four hours after the shooting. Evidence markers could be seen on the sidewalk and street along Maryland Avenue north of 79th Street.
A Hyundai with a shattered rear window faced west in a lane of traffic along 79th.
No one was in custody, and detectives were investigating.
In an interview with the Tribune Thursday evening, the outreach worker, 52, said he was treated for a wound to his right foot and has since been released from U. of C.
Right before the shooting occurred, he said, he was outside of Happy Liquors at 79th Street and Cottage Grove Avenue, and was talking to a man who seeks support from his group. The 52-year-old outreach worker then needed to walk to his truck to get a shirt.
As he walked east toward his truck and was going to cross the street, an SUV pulled up and at least one occupant from the vehicle opened fire in the direction of a few people who were standing outside, the outreach worker recalled.
When the shots rang out, the outreach worker started running toward his truck. But he said the shooter must have figured he was a witness.
“When he turned around, he saw me looking at him,” said the outreach worker, who declined to be identified by name for this story due to safety concerns.
He said the gunman was with at least one other person during the shooting, but the outreach worker said it might be tough identifying them because their faces were covered up.
While he had once been shot with a BB gun, this was the first time the outreach worker had been wounded with a real firearm. At U. of C. Medical Center, hospital staff placed his right foot in a splint.
“It cracked a bone in my big toe,” the outreach worker said of one of the bullets. “I almost started crying.”
He lamented how the level of violence nowadays is out of control, especially if those behind the violence are going to shoot children.
“I don’t know what they put in the water out here,” the outreach worker said. “It’s a war zone.”
Chicago Tribune’s Terrence Antonio James contributed.
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