Girl, 15, shot near school on Chicago's South Side
A teenage girl was shot just steps away from her high school in Chicago's Chatham neighborhood on Tuesday morning.
Police said, around 7:40 a.m., a 15-year-old girl was walking near 85th Street and Lafayette Avenue, when a black sedan pulled up, and two gunmen got out and started shooting.
The shooting happened about a block away from Perspectives Leadership Academy, where the girl is a student.
The girl was shot in the thigh, and was taken to Comer Children's Hospital in fair condition. The shooters got back into the sedan and fled the scene.
At least six shell casings and evidence markers were found on the scene.
The school was placed on a soft lockdown after the shooting. While classes were continuing Tuesday, the school was allowing parents to come in and take their children home for the day.
Gretta Austin said she dropped everything to rush over to her daughter's high school after she got the terrifying call that is every parent's nightmare – a shooting at the school.
"Mommy got to get there for her baby; and to just know that it was feet away from her where she could've been dropped off at, I am not okay," Austin said. "It's insane. It's insane, and I'm just over it. I'm over this violence. I'm beyond over it."
Austin was among many concerned parents who converged on the school to get their kids after learning about the shooting.
The traumatizing scene left parents like Jewel Wash questioning security at the school.
"It's sad. You send your kids to school to be safe, and they end up being harmed. It's just a scary feeling," she said.
Rev. Donovan Price, with Street Pastors, a group of pastors who respond to crisis calls like shootings, said the incident will forever change the lives of students at the school.
"Kids are doing something and parents are doing something that they do every day – that they have to do – and now there will always be the fear of what happened today," Price said.
No one was in custody Tuesday afternoon. Area 2 detectives were investigating.
