Woman Shot While Carrying Daughter Near Elementary School
Updated 06/07/13 - 11:08 a.m.
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A woman carrying her 2-year-old daughter in her arms was shot outside her home in the Calumet Heights neighborhood, as kids were leaving school less than a block away.
Several shots were fired in the 1700 block of East 93rd Street, around 3:30 p.m., just as children were being dismissed from Amelia Earhart Elementary School down the street.
Neighbor Al Hogan Jr. said bullets went through his window, into his bedroom, right next to the desk where he normally sits to do work.
"I just briefly got up, and I went to the bathroom, and I heard the shots," he said. "When I came back, I ducked, and looking out this way, west, and when I came back up in the front of the room here, the shots were in the window. And then they were going over my head, where I normally sit at my desk."
Erica Edwards, who lives on the other side of the victim, said she had just walked into her own house with her son when her next-door neighbor was shot.
"We just heard, like, eight big massive shots," she said.
Edwards said the victim's name is Carmen, and her daughter's name is Brooke. She said Carmen came over to her house in a panic after the shots rang out.
"She was like, 'Oh my God, oh my God!' So I'm thinking something happened to the baby, or Derrick. You know, she's got two babies," Edwards said. "When I opened the door, I said, 'Carmen, what's going on?' and she turned around and said, 'Erica, I've been shot,' and it was just blood was coming out of her chest."
The victim was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, and she was expected to survive. Her daughter ended up on the ground after the shooting, but was not hurt.
Neighbors and parents who were picking up kids from Earhart at the time of the shooting were scared out of their minds.
"You can't pick your kid up from school without possibly getting shot?" Edwards said.
Hogan said the neighborhood is "a real tranquil area, and this kind of activity doesn't happen around here much."
It was not clear who shot the woman, or why. No one was in custody Friday morning.
