By STEFANO ESPOSITO, ALEXANDRA KUKULKA AND SAM CHARLES
Chicago Sun-Times
Persha Chew was carrying some groceries into her Back of the Yards home Monday evening, when she heard seven gunshots, and before long she got the unthinkable news: Her sister, Patricia Chew; and her mother, Lolita Wells, were dead; and her 11-month-old nephew was wounded.
Persha Chew raced outside to find the the baby and her pregnant sister on the ground and bloody.
The baby survived and was in stable condition, but his mother and grandmother were killed, police said. Two other men who were with the women, all returning from a family outing, were also wounded.
Chew, 26, scooped up her screaming, wounded nephew and comforted him, just as police arrived at the scene in the 5300 block of South
Aberdeen.
“It’s OK. It’s OK. I’m here,” Chew kept repeating to her nephew.
As she spoke to reporters at Stroger Hospital, her white T-shirt smeared with her nephew’s blood, Chew praised police for their quick thinking. They raced the child from the scene to get to a hospital.
“That was pretty good,” Chew said.
The baby was shot in the side. His condition had stabilized, according to police.
Chew said her sister was two months’ pregnant and the mother of Chew’s nephew. She didn’t know her sister’s condition Monday night when she spoke to reporters and was anxiously awaiting word—worried about the unborn baby.
Less than an hour later, police announced the mother and grandmother had been killed. Patricia Chew was 24 and her mother 47.
“You have an innocent family coming home from a family outing,” Deputy Chief Eugene Roy told reporters at the scene. “Somebody opens fire on two women, a child and two adults, killing the mother of the 11-month-old and the grandmother of the 11-month-old.
“In a second, two generations of that child’s family were wiped out,” Roy said.
The shooting happened about 7:30 p.m. The group was getting out of the car when unknown gunmen opened fire from another vehicle, Roy said.
Chew said she has no idea who would have wanted to shoot at her family and said she never saw a shooter.
One of the men, 25, was shot in the abdomen, while the other, 24, was shot in both legs, police said. They were both taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where their conditions were stabilized.