AMERICA—At least 15 people were shot outside of a Gresham funeral home on the south side of Chicago in another drive-by shooting on Tuesday, July 21 at around 6:30 p.m. The incident occurred just after the funeral ended as the mourners attending the ceremony were leaving.
According to police, the ceremony was being held to lay to rest a man who was recently killed in a separate drive-by shooting. The shots from July 21 were fired from a nearby vehicle and several people from the crowd returned fire in retaliation. At the scene of the crime, police found a total of 60 shell casings.
Reports indicated that up to two people standing in the crowd were “known to police;” the exact motive of the shooting has not been confirmed yet.
The superintendent of the Chicago Police Department, David Brown, indicated that once police were made aware of the funeral taking place, two police cars were deployed outside of the funeral home, along with a tactical team, as a precaution. Brown stated that these tactics are employed for any funeral that is the result of a gang-related incident as this funeral was.
There were ten women and five men shot, with ages ranging from 21 to 65 years old. Their injuries varied between serious to critical, with one person being in extremely critical condition. Police have said that majority of the victims will be able to survive.
After the shooting, the car that the suspects were driving in was abandoned not too far from the crime scene, with all but one of the suspects fleeing on foot after they had crashed into another parked car. The suspect that was captured is now being questioned by Chicago police.
