In a shooting caught on Facebook Live, a 2-year-old boy and a 26-year-old man were killed and a pregnant woman was wounded when a gunman opened fire as they drove down an alley in Lawndale on Tuesday afternoon, authorities said.
“Call 911! They killed him. … I have a bullet in my stomach,” the woman screams as she runs from the car and into a house in the 2300 block of South Kenneth Avenue around 1:30 p.m.
“Please, please, I can’t breathe,” she says. “Oh my God, please don’t, Lord, I can’t go. I can’t go.”
Seconds earlier, the woman had been posting video on Facebook Live as she drove with her boyfriend at her side and the toddler, Lavontay White Jr., in the backseat. In the video, the couple are singing along to music when several shots are fired at the car.
Lavontay and the man were both hit in the head, according to police. Superintendent Eddie Johnson said paramedics were able to revive the boy at the scene, but he was pronounced dead at Stroger Hospital, as was the man.
The woman, 20, and her fetus were both listed in fair condition at Mount Sinai Hospital. Family members said the baby was about four months along and was expected to survive.
The woman told police they were driving in the alley when a car blocked them behind an AC Delco Auto Electronics shop. A gunman got out and opened fire, police said.
No one was in custody late Tuesday afternoon, but investigators suspect the man was the intended target. “We have very promising leads, we have video,” Johnson said. “There’s no doubt in my mind that we’ll find him.”
The boy was the second child to die Tuesday from Chicago gunfire. Takiya Holmes, 11, died Tuesday morning from wounds suffered in a shooting Saturday. A second girl wounded over the weekend, Kanari Gentry Bowers, 12, remained in critical condition and on life support Tuesday.
In the Facebook Live video, the woman pulls into an alley and then looks to her left as the camera angle dips to face the windshield as gunfire can be heard.
The camera jerks as the woman appears to jump from the car and run along a fence line as gunfire continues.
Screaming, the woman appears to speed past a house and struggles to open a gate. She yells for someone as she opens the door and enters a home.
Once inside, the camera goes black but the audio can still be heard as the woman screams for help.
A neighbor in his early 50s said he saw the child bleeding from his abdomen and the man in the car not moving. “The young lady was just hollering about her baby, she had blood from her stomach,” he said.
At the scene, police surrounded an older-model maroon four-door car in the alley. It had come to rest against an iron fence in the alley, its two front doors open.
The three entrances to the alley were blocked off, as were streets around the scene. Neighbors poked their heads from their porches.
Outside Mount Sinai Hospital, motorists fought through afternoon rush-hour traffic along Ogden Avenue as news vans parked on the south side of the street, and a TV helicopter buzzed overhead.
At Stroger, family members slowly arrived throughout the afternoon. A woman in a pink hat ran up to the ambulance and a man paced outside the emergency room speaking on the phone.
A little before 4 p.m., family members and friends in a large group stood outside the hospital, some hugging each other, when a woman suddenly ran across the parking lot in tears. Two people ran after her and hugged her as she shouted.
At Mount Sinai, family members of the woman gathered for the latest on her condition.
Relatives said a bullet was lodged under the skin of her abdomen and doctors were trying to determine whether or not they can remove it safely.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel released a statement calling again for “meaningful gun control” and harsher sentencing for people who commit crimes with guns.
“Every parent, regardless of where they live, should be able to take their child for a walk to the park or a ride in the car. These are normal rites of passage of childhood,” Emanuel said in the statement.
“These shootings must be a turning point for our city. Anyone with information about these crimes owes it to the families of these children to come forward.”
The Chicago Tribune’s Elyssa Cherney and Liam Ford contributed.
