Authorities say at 14 victims have been hospitalized in serious condition after gunfire erupted
Chicago police investigate the scene of the shooting on Tuesday.
Photograph: Tyler LaRiviere/AP
Fourteen people have been injured in connection with a shooting late on Tuesday outside a funeral home on Chicago’s South Side, police officials said Tuesday.
The victims were taken by the Chicago fire department to nearby hospitals in serious condition, said a fire department spokesman, Larry Langford.
Mourners outside a funeral home were fired upon from a passing SUV, said Eric Carter, first deputy superintendent of the Chicago police. Carter said several targets of the shooting returned fire. The SUV later crashed and the occupants fled in several directions. One person of interest has been taken into custody. Carter said all the victims were adults.
Arnita Geder and Kenneth Hughes said they heard gunshots while in their home watching television, adding that they came outside to find bodies that were shot up and “laying everywhere”.
“We thought it was a war out here,” Geder told the Chicago Sun-Times. “It’s ridiculous all the shooting that’s going on out here, it really has to stop.”
The shooting comes as the Department of Homeland Security is planning to deploy dozens of federal agents to Chicago to deal with an uptick in violent crime in the city.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot, after threatening to sue if Donald Trump acted without her permission, said on Tuesday the city would be working with federal agents to fight crime.
Lightfoot has been skeptical of federal agents being sent to Chicago by Trump amid controversy in Portland, Oregon, where the Trump administration sent federal officers after weeks of protests there over police brutality and racial injustice that followed the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Lightfoot said she expected Chicago to receive resources that would plug into federal agencies that already work with the city, including the FBI, Drug Enforcement Agency and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Oregon’s governor and Portland’s mayor have expressed anger with the presence of the federal agents, saying that the city’s protests had started to ease just as the federal agents started taking action.
More details soon …
