8-Year-Old In Serious Condition After Shooting At Gender Reveal Party In West Englewood
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Chicago police are working around the clock after shots were fired at a gender reveal party in West Englewood Saturday.
Six people were injured, including two children. All were stable and recovering Sunday night except 8-year-old Mekhi McGruder, who was taken to Comer Children's Hospital in critical condition. Mekhi was upgraded to serious condition Monday morning.
Chicago Fire Department officials said the child had a collapsed lung, so paramedics had to perform a life-saving procedure during the ambulance ride to the hospital.
Loved ones tell CBS 2 he was wounded after shots were fired among a crowd of kids attending a gender reveal party around 6:20 Saturday evening.
"In the celebration of new life, a life is also damaged," said Reverend Roderick Gardiner of Coptic Faith Temple, who lives, works and worships in West Englewood. "So I'm three-fold connected to this community. It's troubling because their life is forever changed."
Chicago police say a 10-year-old girls was also among the six victims and is stable after being shot in the shin.
"I see often the children playing," Gardiner said. "They know us, and we know them."
A representative said Mayor Rahm Emanuel stopped by Comer Sunday afternoon to visit both children and got emotional when asked about the shooting.
"Our kids deserve to know the sound of laughter, not the sound of gunfire, regardless of where they live, regardless of their background," Emanuel said.
The other four victims, all adults between the ages of 23 and 42, are expected to survive.
"I'm troubled because we've worked in this neighborhood for years," Gardiner said.
No one is in custody in relation to the crime, but detectives believe the shooting was a retaliation to an earlier incident. They ask anyone with information to send anonymous information to cpdtip.com.
