Andrea Boyd was out grocery shopping on what seemed like an ordinary afternoon when her phone rang. It was her teenage twin sons, and their voices were panicked.
“Mom, they’re shooting over here real bad,” they told her.
At around 4:50 p.m. on Saturday, in a parking lot on West 14th Street near the Barbara Jean Wright Court apartment complex in Chicago, chaos broke out. Six men approached a 20-year-old man, demanding his belongings. But things quickly escalated as the gunmen fired shots into the air.
Nearby, a 3-year-old boy was lying in bed with his mother and siblings when they heard the terrifying sound of gunfire. In an instant, they rushed for the bedroom door to get to safety. But before the little boy could make it off the bed, a bullet shattered the window, hitting him in the left ear. His mother was also cut by the flying glass.
“Mommy, I’m shot,” the boy said, pointing to his ear.
The family rushed him to Stroger Hospital, where doctors said he was in fair condition.
When Boyd got home, the parking lot was swarming with police cars, and her children couldn’t stop talking about what had happened. “They told me they heard about 40 shots and someone screaming for help,” she said.
The 20-year-old robbery victim, who had been visiting a friend at the complex, was ambushed by the group. According to police, one of the attackers was someone the man knew from high school. After the shooting, the gunmen put their weapons into a black Nissan and sped off. Two silver SUVs were also seen fleeing the area, heading east.
Two days later, the aftermath of the violence was still visible. A bullet hole remained in the window where the little boy was shot. Across the street in a parking lot, a white Ford Expedition sat damaged, with three bullet holes in its side and window. Police reported that several other vehicles were also hit by stray bullets.
Boyd, 37, has only been living at the complex for a few months, but this wasn’t her first experience with the violence plaguing the area. A couple of months ago, her white Mercedes-Benz was hit by gunfire in another shooting. And in August, she had to grab her 4-year-old son and rush out of a nearby park when shots rang out again.
Now, Boyd says she’s done. For the safety of her children, she’s looking to move to the suburbs.
“I feel terrible, terrified for the kids,” she shared. “You can’t go to work, you can’t let your kids go to school by themselves. Everyone has to stop everything just to make sure your kids get back and forth safely.”
Boyd’s frustration and fear are clear. “It’s really ridiculous,” she said. “It’s very scary.”
For families like Boyd’s, life in some neighborhoods is a constant balance of survival and worry.
