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CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Fifteen people were wounded Tuesday evening in a shootout that erupted outside a funeral home in Gresham on Chicago's South Side, police said.
This occurrence marked the largest number of victims in a single Chicago shooting in recent memory.
The shooting happened around 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at 79th and South Carpenter Street as people were leaving a funeral. Someone inside a speeding vehicle that was westbound on 79th began shooting at attendees, who returned fire, First Deputy Police Supt. Eric Carter told reporters. The vehicle turned north on Carpenter, with someone continuing to shoot, he said.
Midway down the block, the vehicle crashed and came to a halt, Carter said. The occupants fled.
Several police evidence markers placed near spent bullet casings were lying outside the entrance to Rhodes Funeral Services on the north side of the block. All told, Carter said, police recovered 60 of them.
Nine people were transported by ambulance to hospitals, fire officials said. The additional victims may have driven themselves to hospitals to get medical attention.
All 15 victims were being treated, though, at area hospitals, Carter said. Chicago fire officials said they were listed in conditions ranging from serious to critical. All the victims ages range from 21 to 65-years-old, police said. Ten of them are women.
Police said they were investigating the motive and couldn’t say yet if the shootings were gang-related.
One person of interest has been questioned, Carter said.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Chicago Police Superintendent held a news conference Wednesday to provide an update on the incident.
Chief of Detectives Brendan Deenihan said "we know that there was a funeral taking place and there were several individuals hanging outside of that location when a vehicle, a Malibu, came pulling around the block, and then you can see individuals from the Malibu discharge firearms into that crowd."
He said members of the crowd fired back. The driver crashed and offenders fled, "making good their escape at this time."
Deenihan said the car was stolen. Chicago police are figuring out how and when it was stolen.
"As the Superintendent mentioned, we have 15 people shot. One of whom is still in extremely critical condition. We have another in critical condition," he said.
The rest, he said, doctors believe will recover.
"We have almost 60 shell casings out on the scene, and at this point detectives are working with the individuals who were shot, interviewing them. We are also looking to seek additional witnesses to help out with this case," Deenihan said. "We believe there are individuals out in the community and out in the crowd, who know the shooters. They know who did this incident...Please help the detectives with this investigation.
"This can't happen. You can't drive down the street and indiscriminately shoot into a crowd of people and then flee the scene to make good to your escape. We know the information is out there. The detectives want to arrest these individuals and bring them to justice."
Chief of Detectives Brendan Deenihan also spoke about a 3-year-old girl who was shot in South Shore.
"Not long after this, another 3-year-old child was shot in the head, and thankfully, that child is in stable condition and talking," he said. "But in that incident, mother and father were out late at night and the child in a seat. They were at a gas station where an altercation occurs. At which point, when the father's driving away shots are fired into the vehicle striking the child."
Deenihan said the detectives have a long way to go in their investigation. He said they don't have all the information they need.
Chicago Superintendent David Brown started by saying, "Let me start by just talking about what the violence really is involving. There are over 117,000 gang members in the city of Chicago. 117,000 gang members. That's not bad enough. They're broken down into 55 major gangs, broken down into 747 factions of those 55 major gangs, and those 747 factions are broken down into 2,500 subsets of those factions."
Brown said in any day of the week, any time of day, several hundred gang conflicts occur related to the 117,000 gang members.
He expressed his deepest condolences to all the victims of gun violence Tuesday.
"The cycle of violence in Chicago: someone gets shot, which prompts someone else to pick up a gun. The same cycle repeats itself over and over and over again. The cycle is fueled by street gangs, guns and drugs," Brown said.
In the funeral shooting, "rival factions repeated this cycle. Too many people in Chicago have been touched by gun violence and the response, too often, is picking up a gun to seek vengeance. There is no comfort in revenge. None. Put your guns down.
"We can't keep meeting out violence with violence. An eye for an eye makes us both blind. It's destroying our families and perpetuates this endless cycle of gunshot victims night after night. A bullet for a bullet is killing these families, these neighborhoods," Brown said. "These bullets are shot in anger, fear, desperation. These bullets sent more than a dozen people to the hospital last night and a 3-year old to the hospital hours later. The impact of these bullets go beyond pain and grief. These bullets are destroying our sense of safety in our neighborhoods. These bullets also leave the survivors with a feeling of hopelessness."
Brown asked anyone who knows about these shootings or others "to bring real justice, not revenge," by calling Area 2 detectives at 312-747-8271.
"CPD has recovered over 5,000 guns so far this year and made over 3,500 gun arrests. I am directing CPD officers to redouble our efforts to recover even more guns, to make even more arrests in an effort to bring safety," he said. "And we want to do this in a larger deployment strategy; more of a centralized deployment with a large group of officers dedicated to our hot spots of violence and crime, to include engaging the community with positive interactions with our young people and their families. Put down the guns. Put 'em down. End the cycle. End it today. We can do this, but it can only happen one neighborhood at a time."
"This is a mourning morning, another day where we start with despair, another day where we start with reporting on violence in a neighborhood that has struck and felled too many people," she said.
The Mayor extended her condolences to the victims of the shooting outside the funeral home, as well as the 3-year-old girl shot in South Shore.
"What makes this incident especially heinous is that those shooters took advantage of families and friends who were gathered to mourn the death of a young man, who himself had lost his life just the week before," Lightfoot said. "The ongoing battle that seemingly spreads day to day, block to block, as we fight throughout this summer to end this carnage...To the families of the victims last night, but also before, you are experiencing an even new level of trauma and pain, and I recognize that each one of these new incidents trigger your pain, your grief and your trauma."
The Mayor encourages anyone who needs help to call 311.
"This is a difficult time to stand here, because of the pain we're all feeling. We all had restless nights last night, me included. But I woke up this morning even more resolved to do everything we can to stop this violence," Mayor Lightfoot said.
To the "cowards" behind these shootings: "We have to ask you to find your humanity," she said.
"I pray for you, but I also pray that we find you and bring you to justice."