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Shooting Victim Remembers Slain Friend: ‘He Was Always Funny’

Christian Goodman, 16, shows where a bullet struck his arm when two gunmen opened fire on him and two friends in Brighton Park. Christian put his arm up to protect himself during the shooting, stopping the bullet from striking his head. (Credit: CBS)

Christian Goodman, 16, shows where a bullet struck his arm when two gunmen opened fire on him and two friends in Brighton Park. Christian put his arm up to protect himself during the shooting, stopping the bullet from striking his head. (Credit: CBS)

Mike Puccinelli

Reporting Mike Puccinelli

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CHICAGO (CBS) – It’s a crime so brazen, the mayor even reached out to call at least one victim’s family members. Now, the young man Mayor Rahm Emanuel inquired about is talking for the first time on camera.

CBS 2′s Mike Puccinelli has the story. Roberto Luna, 13, was killed and two other teenagers were wounded when two gunman opened fire on them as they sat on the front steps of Luna’s home in Brighton Park.

Cerafin Gonzalez, 16, and Christian Goodman, 15, were wounded. Cerafin was shot in the arm, Christian was shot in the stomach, back, arm and both legs.

“Christian put his arm up. It’s the only reason he didn’t get shot in the head,” his mother Sabrina Goodman said. “He got shot in his arm and they scraped his face. And he sat there two minutes not breathing, acting like he was dead and that’s the only reason they stopped shooting him.”

But by the time the gunfire stopped, Christian had been riddled with bullets, getting hit 10 times.

“They said it was 19 holes, and there was one bullet still in him, so you gotta do the math,” his father Kelly Vajgert said. “Ten times. You know, one, and the rest went through-and-through.”

Even though he has a rod in his leg, and he may limp from here on out, his dad said Christian is lucky, because he’s still here.

The same can’t be said of his best friend, Roberto Luna, who was shot to death as Christian watched in horror.

“He was always funny. He was a fun person to be around,” Christian said as he fought back tears from his hospital bed, while remembering his friend.

The shooting happened Saturday night when two gunmen walked out of a gangway near the intersection of 46th Street and Spaulding Avenue, and – without warning – opened fire on the three friends.

Police believe the shooters are gang members, but they said the victims were not.

But Christian’s mother the first police officers on the scene treated her son as if he was a criminal.

“They treated him like he was a piece of crap, like he was nobody” Sabrina Goodman said.

Despite being shot in the legs, stomach, arms and back, she claimed police didn’t seem to take his wounds seriously.

“They were just telling him that he was some kind of thug,” she said. “They were yelling at me, telling me I couldn’t go by Christian. Christian said that, when they made him hop down the stairs – which he had to, because he couldn’t touch the leg, but when he was hopping, he was screaming, because he was in so much pain and … they told him ‘You act like you’re dying.’”

Christian wasn’t thinking about police when he spoke to CBS 2 at the hospital, but instead was thinking about the two people who killed his friend, and a question he might never get answered: why?

“Why did they have to do it?” he asked.

So far, police have made no arrests in the shooting.

The Independent Police Review Authority, which investigates alleged police misconduct, was at the scene of the shooting on Wednesday to look into Sabrina Goodman’s allegations. Police did not return calls for comment about those claims.

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