CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Two Chicago police officers are credited with saving the life of a 13-year-old boy who was shot earlier this week.
It happened Monday on Coles Avenue near 82nd Street. Officers Rhonda Ward and Julius Givens were told by a woman that the victim was wounded in her backyard.
When the officers saw the teen, Givens said, they deemed his wounds too serious to wait for an ambulance. Instead, they carried him about 200 feet to their squad car and drove him to Comer Children's Hospital.
“He was in and out of consciousness, so we were trying to keep him alive and keep him up — have him tell us his name, birthday, mother’s name, what he’s going to do that weekend — just keeping him awake,” Givens said.
The 13-year-old old previously has been identified as Swaysee Rankin. He was one of two teen boys wounded in what has been described as a drive-by shooting.
Swaysee’s mother, Ashley Jackson, said her son, who is recovering, was the victim of random violence.
“He left out of one house and he was on the way to the next with a group of friends and somebody just pulled up and started shooting,” she told the Chicago Sun-Times.
The incident comes in the wake of a Chicago police officer’s fatal shooting of a 13-year-old boy in the Little Village neighborhood.
Givens said police want to save lives, not take them.
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