Infant Wounded, Pregnant Mom Killed in Monday-Night Shooting

An infant child — just 11 months old — his 2-months-pregnant mother and his grandmother were shot on Chicago’s South Side Monday night along with two others in the 5300 block of South Aberdeen in the Back of the Yards.

The mother, 23, and grandmother, 46, died late Monday of their wounds, police announced. The baby was identified as Princeton Chew.

“In a second, two generations of that child’s family were wiped out,” said Deputy Chief Eugene Roy, speaking to reporters from the crime scene.

The family was coming home from a family outing at about 7:10 p.m. when the gunfire broke out.

Chicago Police told reporters the baby is in stable condition at Stroger Hospital, rushed there by a police officer. Roy praised the officer’s quick actions to speed the baby to the hospital immediately upon arriving at the scene.

The baby was shot in the side, reports the Chicago Sun-Times. Police are searching for the occupants of a car that stopped and opened fire on a group of people at 53rd and Aberdeen. As many as 15 to 20 shots were fired, witnesses told CBS Chicago.

Persha Chew heard the shots and ran outside of her home to find her sister and mother on the ground, reports the Sun-Times. She scooped up the baby and held him. Police arrived just moments later and took her and the baby to Stroger Hospital.

DNAinfo Chicago identified the other victims as a 25-year-old men. The victims were taken to Mount Sinai and Stroger hospitals.

Monday night’s violence comes after a weekend that saw 53 people wounded — including a 10-year-old girl whose neck was grazed by a bullet as she ran from a gunman in Woodlawn — and four men killed.

On Sunday around noon, Melanie Irving ran to a church as bullets whizzed around her. She felt one on her neck, she told the Chicago Tribune. Police believe she was caught in a drive-by shooting as one gang faction targeted another.

“The bullet, it touched me. I could feel something touch me on the side of my neck,” Irving said.

The U.S. attorney for northern Illinois, Zachary Fardon, spoke at a City Club luncheon Monday afternoon about the rising mayhem and the increasing number of children falling victim to gunfire on Chicago’s lawless streets.

“For too long, gun crime has been tearing at the fabric of our social contract in this city. These are our kids. These are our neighborhoods. This problem hits the heart of who we are and who we want to be. As a city, we cannot abide our Chicago being one where it’s OK for kids to die,” Fardon said.