May 27--Jonathan Enriquez was upstairs playing video games Tuesday night when he heard shots he thought sounded like they came from a nearby home in the McKinley Park neighborhood.
Enriquez, 19, went downstairs to check and found his 61-year-old grandmother lying on the couch, holding her neck and bleeding. At least four bullets had pierced the window behind her.
"She was just lying there, breathing really heavy," Enriquez said. "I held her head, trying to keep her awake."
His grandmother, Miriam Enriquez, had a gunshot wound to the right side of her neck and was taken to Stroger Hospital, where her condition was stabilized, police and family members said.
"I had to be calm. I had to," said Jonathan Enriquez, still tense as he stood in front of the family's two-story red-brick home in the 3600 block of South Honore Street on Wednesday morning. His hands were locked behind him, and he stared into space as he recounted the evening's events.
His grandmother was watching news on TV, sitting on a couch in front of a window on the first floor, when someone in a white sedan fired at the house around 10:20 p.m., according to police and family members.
Police responded to a call of shots fired and started chasing a car fleeing the scene, authorities said. The car headed south on Interstate 55 and crashed on the ramp to Interstate 294 with police still in pursuit, authorities said.
Police said they were questioning a suspect involved in the crash.
Before the shooting, authorities said, Miriam Enriquez's son had been outside the home and was involved in an altercation with someone. That person returned and fired at the house, police said.
Miriam Enriquez's sister, Catalina Gonzalez, 68, lives across the street and said she was in her kitchen when she heard five gunshots and ran outside.
Gonzalez said her family and her sister's family have been living on the same Honore block for more than 30 years. She and neighbors said the block tends to be quiet, but gunfire south and north of the area is not unusual, especially during the summer.
From time to time, gang members shoot at each other and chase one another about a block away, around 37th and Wood streets, they said.
"Summer's starting ... that's when things start happening," said Enrique Diaz, a neighbor and family friend.
The shooting brought back tragic memories for Gonzalez, who said one of her sons was shot to death during a robbery about 25 years ago in the Marquette Park neighborhood.
"I don't know when they're going to finish," said Gonzalez, sitting on the steps of her house, waiting for a relative to take her to the hospital to see her sister. "I hate the guns. I hate, I hate the guns."
Gonzalez said her two other children moved out of McKinley Park and have been telling her that she should move as well. But she said it is a tightknit block.
"I love my house," Gonzalez said. "We know the neighbors. We help each other. We work all together."
