Crime & Safety

Kids Nap Through Shooting as Bullet Shatters Daycare Center Window

Four people drove themselves to a hospital after Wednesday's shooting in the Back of the Yards. One is in critical condition.

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CHICAGO, IL — A gang shooting in the Back of the Yards sent a bullet through the window of a neighborhood daycare during "nap time," according to a Chicago day care worker.

The shooting sent four people to a hospital Wednesday afternoon, too, according to police. The wounded, one 16, two in their 20s, and one 24, were in the same car. They drove to Holy Cross Hospital. At least two were documented gang members. One was reportedly shot in the chest and is in critical condition, reports WGN, and another in the hand.

Roslyn Thomas, who works at Computer Preschool Academy, told NBC Chicago a bullet shattered a window in a door. Thomas told NBC Chicago the shooting “happened during nap time." The children never woke up.

No one inside the day care center was hurt.

The shooting took place in the 5400 block of South Loomis, near a park and a school, just before 2 p.m. Police said a car approached the one the four victims were in and someone opened fire on them.

A DNAinfo Chicago reporter who went to the scene in the late afternoon spoke to staffers and neighborhood residents.

"They need martial law out here," one employee said. "I know police can't be everywhere, but this has gone to its limit."

Ken Richard, who lives nearby, said this is just what living in Chicago is these days.

"It is what it is," he said. "This is every day for me."

The news was just reaching Twitter by 4 p.m., and immediately the shooting became part of the sad running commentary on the commonplace violence Chicagoans live with.

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