Aug. 30--A male paramedic knelt in the grass of a dark empty lot at 1:20 a.m. Sunday in East Chatham. He placed his hands, wrapped in orange gloves, on the torso of a 16-year-old boy lying before him and started rhythmically pushing against his chest.
A man stood nearby with a flashlight, shining it on the boy's body. A cut-up piece of the boy's clothing lay nearby.
A group of about seven paramedics and other first responders helped transfer the boy onto a stretcher and hastily rolled him out of the scene of the shooting in the 8200 block of South Ingleside Avenue.
The boy, who was shot in the chest about 1 a.m. while he stood outside, lay on the stretcher without moving. His head was turned to the side, and his eyes were closed. Blood was smeared across his face.
Paramedics rolled the stretcher past a handful of the boy's friends who gathered outside the yellow crime scene tape, which blocked about a block of Ingleside north of 83rd Street. Then they placed the boy inside Ambulance 9, which was parked in the middle of the intersection of 83rd and Ingleside.
"Is he gonna be OK?" said one of the boy's friends who walked up to the ambulance.
"We don't know," a police officer replied.
Several feet south of the intersection of 83rd and Ingleside, other paramedics placed a 17-year-old boy, who was shot in the leg during the same incident, into another ambulance.
Once loaded with their respective patients, both ambulances took off toward Advocate Christ Medical Center.
The 17-year-old's condition stabilized, but the 16-year-old was pronounced dead at the hospital early Sunday morning, officials said.
About 15 minutes after the two ambulances left, a woman in a black hairnet, dressed in dark pants, a T-shirt with Winnie-the-Pooh characters and orange shoes, walked up to the intersection of East 83rd Street and South Ingleside Avenue from the east side.
She stopped in the middle of intersection and leaned over, placing her hands on her legs.
"Where is he at? Where is he at? Where is he at?" she said, panting heavily. "Oh my (expletive) God."
She identified herself to nearby police officers and detectives as the mother of the 16-year-old who was shot.
"You n--s. You n--s. Oh it's on," she yelled to no one in particular, raising her hands into the air. "You all know who (my son) is. It's his mother talking. It's on. It's about time I tell you that."
The woman leaned onto a police squad car as she talked to a group of police officers who took down information about her son. She tried to find out the details of the shooting.
"He was shot in this lot?" she asked, pointing toward a vacant lot north of the intersection. "Where was he shot? In the foot? In the back?"
After a few moments, the woman started to moan and pant even more heavily. She asked for a cellphone.
"Get somebody to Christ right now," she pleaded over the phone, placing her hand on her chest. "Please, please, please. ... Take me to him."
The woman hung up the phone and continued talking with several detectives who had walked over to her. The group stood next to a black-railed metal fence on the northeastern corner of the intersection of 83rd and Ingleside.
The woman leaned on the metal fence from time to time, covering her face with hands. Her voice was emotional and raspy, and her eyes were wide.
More from the East Chatham shooting in The Beat
