A 2-year-old boy and 26-year-old man are dead and a pregnant woman is injured after a gunman opened fire on their car in the Lawndale area of Chicago on Tuesday, according to The Chicago Tribune. The woman was filming the trio on Facebook Live when the shooting occurred.
The video begins with the woman singing and dancing with the man in the car. A child, whom police identified as Lavontay White Jr., can be seen in the back seat.
After a minute and a half, gunfire can be heard as the woman screams.
The screen goes dark after the woman runs out of the car and into a house, apparently looking for help. She can be heard yelling, “Call 911! They killed him,” apparently referring to the car’s other passenger. She then tells people in the house, “I have a bullet in my stomach!”
The full video, which is graphic, has been removed from Facebook but can still be found on YouTube.
Both Lavontay and the older male passenger, whom police have not publicly identified, were shot in the head, the Tribune reports.
Eddie T. Johnson, superintendent of the Chicago Police Department, said during a press conference following the shooting that the adult male victim was a documented gang member who died of his injuries, adding that the attack appeared to be targeted. Paramedics revived the child for some time, but he was later pronounced dead at Stroger Hospital.
The woman, who is in her 20s, and her fetus are expected to survive.
“This has just got to stop somewhere,” Johnson told news reporters after the shooting. “Our children shouldn’t have to keep paying the price for our inability to hold repeat gun offenders accountable for their actions,” as well as first-time gun offenders, he added.
Johnson said he was confident CPD would find the suspect in Tuesday’s shooting, citing “promising leads” and video of the shooting.
The woman told police that she, the man and the child were driving through an alley behind AC Delco Auto Electronics shop when a car blocked them and a gunman exited the vehicle and opened fire, according to police.
Photos of the crime scene show a dark red Oldsmobile Alero with bullet holes near a fence in an alley.
Lavontay is one of three children who have died from a shooting in Chicago over a four-day period.
Takiya Holmes, an 11-year-old girl who was hit in the head by a stray bullet intended for a rival drug dealer on Saturday evening, died on Tuesday of her injuries. Kamari Gentry-Bowers, 12, was also hit with a bullet at a Chicago playground on Saturday night.
She died Wednesday at Stroger Hospital after four days on life support, according to the Chicago Sun Times.
Shootings in Chicago have reached a two-decade high, with 4,000 shooting victims and 762 homicides last year, according to the Washington Post.
On Valentine’s Day alone, 12 people were shot in Chicago’s south and west sides, the Chicago Sun Times reports. Five people were killed that day, including 2-year-old Lavontay.
One day before Tuesday’s shootings, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel met with newly appointed U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, seeking federal aid to combat the violence in the city.
“One victim of one shooting is one too many,” Emanuel said in a statement following Tuesday’s deaths. “But when innocent children are caught in the crossfire of gun violence … our consciences are shaken and our hearts are broken.”
The mayor said Tuesday’s shootings “must be a turning point for our city” and called for “meaningful gun control and sentencing legislation” to keep guns away from criminals and “keep repeat offenders off our streets.”
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
Source: HuffPost Black Voices