CHICAGO _ A 3-year-old boy was shot and critically wounded during a game of "cops and robbers" among children left home alone in a "deplorable" South Side apartment with no heat or hot water, Chicago police said.
The boy suffered a gunshot wound to the temple and remained in critical condition early Friday after undergoing surgery at Comer's Children's Hospital, police said.
The boy's parents were in police custody, but no charges have been announced.
Officers were called to the Englewood home in the 6200 block of South Aberdeen street just before 5 p.m. Thursday. They found the boy and three other children 11 and younger unsupervised.
The boy was the youngest child in the home, police said. A teenager also may have been there at the time of the shooting, but as of late Thursday had not been located.
Police said they recovered an "unsecured" handgun and seized a "sizable" amount of drugs.
"A travesty," tweeted chief police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi. "Kids left in deplorable conditions alone." It appeared the family was using the stove for warmth and there was no hot water.
Distraught family members stood with police officers outside the red brick, two-flat home surrounded by a black wrought-iron fence.
Police said the boy's mother had a firearm owner identification card and appeared to legally own a .40-caliber handgun that police found in an unlocked lock box in the home.
Police said a spent shell casing found next to the boy matched the caliber of the gun recovered.
Records show numerous housing code violations at the building over the years, with the most recent inspection by the Chicago Buildings Department in March 2016.
