2 Girls, 7 and 13, Shot In School Picnic Drive-By Shooting

CHICAGO, IL — An end-of-the-year picnic at a Far South Side elementary school turned tragic Friday afternoon when two girls — 7 and 13 — were tne unintended victims of a drive-by shooting, Chicago police said. Both victims suffered injuries that were not life-threatening — one girl was wounded in the hand, the other in the thigh — and were taken to Comer Children's Hospital, Superintendent Eddie Johnson said during a press conference at the scene.

The shooting happened just before 2 p.m. Friday, June 16, at Joseph Warren Elementary School, near South Jeffery Avenue and East 92nd Street, in the Pill Hill neighborhood. At the time, students and school staff were outside attending a picnic to celebrate the end of classes for the year, police said. (Get Patch real-time email alerts for the latest news for the South Side and Chicago — or other neighborhoods. And iPhone users: Check out Patch's new app.)

Before the shooting, several former students tried to enter the school, but security officers who knew them kicked them off campus, Johnson said. According to the superintendent, the ex-students — Johnson would not give their ages — then went to hang out at a nearby corner at 92nd and South Chapel Avenue. That's when a black vehicle drove up to the individuals and opened fire, Johnson said.

The former students tried to escape the gunfire by running toward the school picnic, and the shots hit two students on the playground at the event, the superintendent said. Johnson called the ex-students the "intended targets" in the shooting, not the two actual victims.

Shortly after the shooting, several "subjects of interest" in a stolen vehicle were stopped by officers and taken into custody, Johnson said. He attributed the speedy response to cooperating witnesses and officers already in the area of the shooting.

For Johnson, the incident was another example of Chicago's rampant gun violence. He called it "mind-boggling" that city and state elected officials continue to ignore the problem, leaving it to the Chicago Police Department and the mayor's office to handle.

"This makes me sick that kids are having an end-of-the-year picnic, and they have to get shot at. Really? That's not what we're about," Johnson said at the press conference.

"It angers me that these little children can grow up in a neighborhood and think gunfire is the norm, becuase it's not the norm. … [A]s a city, we just have to do better to stop things like this," he added.

Johnson wasn't the only one upset by the shooting. Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who was visiting the victims and their families at the hospital, was outraged when he was told about the school shooting incident, Chicago Public Schools CEO Forrest Claypool said at the press conference.

"I’ve known the mayor for 30 years, and I have never seen him so angry," he said.

After the shooting, Claypool said parents were informed and told to pick up their children from school. If they were unable to do that, those students were taken home by police, he said. Despite Friday's violence, Claypool added that schools area still one of the safest places for children.

Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson (at lectern) and Chicago Public Schools CEO Forrest Claypool (to the left of Johnson) discuss a drive-by shooting Friday at Joseph Warren Elementary School that wounded two girls, ages 7 and 13. (Photos via the Chicago Police Department)

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