Boy, 5, critically injured in shooting
A 5-year-old boy was critically wounded in a shooting in Elgin tonight, a police spokeswoman said.
Elgin emergency services received a call about 7:10 p.m. about the shooting, and found the boy wounded in the 1300 block of Dundee Avenue, said Sue Olafson, an Elgin city spokeswoman.
A car the boy was riding in with two other people was backing out of a driveway in the 900 block of Elma Avenue on the northeast side of the city when those in the car heard shots fired, Olafson said in an email.
Soon after, the two realized the boy had been shot, Olafson said. The two stopped the car at a gas station in the 1300 block of Dundee Avenue, a half-mile away from where the shots were fired, and called police.
The boy was taken to Sherman Hospital in Elgin, where he was in critical condition this evening, Olafson said. Initial reports that he wsa airlifted Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge were incorrect, Olafson said.
The Elgin Police Gang Unit is investigating the shooting, she said.
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8th Grade Boy with 'a big heart' shot along with man on South Side
An eighth-grader waiting for football practice to begin was wounded, along with a man, as they stood at a corner in theSouth Shore neighborhood this afternoon.
The boy, identified by family as Deonta Brown, 14, and the man, 31, were shot at about 3:45 p.m. in the 7700 block of South Kingston Avenue, according to Chicago Police News Affairs Officer Daniel O’Brien.
The teen was taken to Comer Children’s Hospital in critical condition, and the man was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, also in critical condition, O’Brien said.
Deonta had just left Bradwell Elementary School and was hanging out with some friends at the corner of 77th Street and Kingston, waiting for football practice, said Capricio Wilson, a teacher and coach at the school.
Noia Downs said she was looking out of her window near Kingston Avenue and 77th Street waiting for her 16-year-old daughter to return home from school when she noticed a man in a brown shirt walking east on 77th street.
The man walked down the middle of the street toward a man wearing a white shirt who was walking west, she said. When they got to the intersection of Kingston and 77th, Downs said the man in the brown shirt pulled a gun from his pants and opened fire on the man wearing the white shirt, who collapsed in the street.
"My heart dropped and I was screaming," said Downs, who ran outside and called police. "He didn't even care that there were kids on the corner."
Joann Brown, 16, said she started to cry when her mother called her from the hospital to say her younger brother had been shot as he walked home from school.
"I was in shock, I couldn't believe it," said Brown, as she stood near a length of yellow police tape that had been pulled across Kingston Avenue at the shooting scene. "He wasn't doing nothing, he was leaving school."
Deonta "was near the target and they hit the target along with him," Wilson said.
Downs, 33, said the man in the brown shirt continued to spray the other man with bullets as groups of children stood nearby screaming.
Brown said her brother had stopped to talk to a friend on the corner when a gunman approached and shot him. He tried to run, but collapsed nearby, she said.
Downs said she then saw one of the kids start running north on Kingston, grabbing his stomach. The shooter fled on foot, running west on 77th street, she said.
"It's terrible," Downs said, shaking her head Friday evening as she looked toward the intersection where blood splatters still stained the road.
"There was a beef with the target and the shooter," Wilson said, saying Deonta had no connection with the other person shot.
Police said initial interviews with witnesses bear out what Wilson learned from his students. Witnesses told police it appeared that the man may have been the target in the shooting, and that Deonta was standing with others who were not with the man when the attack took place.
"This neighborhood, you can only assume gangs," Wilson said. "He was at the wrong place at the wrong time -- right after dismissal. I can't get over that one of my kids got shot. He was due for practice."
Wilson said Deonta’s friends ran back to the school and told him about the shooting.
Family gathered at the hospital Friday evening, holding vigil at Deonta's hospital bedside. They said he had suffered injuries to a major artery and his pancreas before the bullet lodged in his spine.
"He's fighting for his life," said Deonta's mother Lola, in a brief telephone interview after she rushed to the hospital with her husband and other relatives.
Family described Deonta as a spirited prankster who loves hip-hop and football, and has dreams of one day playing for the Chicago Bears.
They said on Friday that doctors had told them the next 24 hours would be crucial, but they were hopeful that if he survived he wouldn't be paralyzed by his injuries.
"It doesn't make any sense that our kids cannot go to and from school without being shot," said Deonta's aunt Michelle Keys, who was also at the hospital. "Now we have to worry about him getting through the night. It's too much."
Deonta plays several positions on the school's football team, which Wilson helps coach. "Cornerback, running back, receiver. He's a talented guy. We can move him in any position.
"He loves sports, he loves football. He's athletic. He just signed up for basketball," Wilson said. "He's just your average kid. He's got a big voice and a big heart."
When the other football players learned about Deonta’s shooting, "their morale was broken," Wilson said. "I love these kids. They show you why you do this. This is poison they don't need."
