By MATTHEW HENDRICKSON and MITCHELL ARMENTROUT
Chicago Sun-Times Wire
Police inspect a car at the scene of a mass shooting in Washington Heights late Thursday. | Network Video Productions
Chanda Foreman spent the day before her death going to work, hanging out with her cousin and preparing to go out at night.
She went to her job at Comcast early, where her co-workers had decorated her desk and held a party in honor of her 37th birthday on Thursday, her family said.
Foreman was shot and killed and four others were wounded when a gold Buick with four people inside pulled up about 9:45 p.m. in the 9500 block of South Loomis, and two gunmen opened fire from the back seat, according to Chicago Police.
Foreman was inside her car when she was shot, her mother, Cathy Geralds said. She was told another woman was shot inside Foreman’s car, and three other people were shot on the front porch of Foreman’s aunt’s home.
Chanda Foreman | Facebook
Geralds said her cousin, whose wife was also shot, called her about the shooting. The cousin didn’t know if Foreman had been struck, but when Geralds arrived at the crime scene, she was told she didn’t want to see her daughter in the condition she was in.
“And I knew she was gone,” Geralds said. “She was gone.”
She died while being transported to Holy Cross Hospital with a gunshot wound to the head, police said.
Earlier in the evening, she had gone to dinner downtown and then to her aunt’s home, Geralds said. She was told that two groups of people were shooting from either end of the block and believed that Foreman was struck while waiting inside her car outside the house.
Police investigate a Far South Side shooting that left a woman dead and four others wounded late Thursday. | Network Video Productions
“I didn’t get to talk to her today,” Geralds said. “I sent her a text and wished her a happy birthday.”
Geralds remembered her daughter as a responsible woman who had worked at her job for 10 years. Foreman’s 6-year-old daughter will likely live with her now, she said. The child is not allowed to play outside on the sidewalk, and her daughter’s death makes Geralds wonder if she wants to move somewhere else.
Geralds said this was the second time her daughter was shot. Foreman was shot inside a car when a person running down the street in the area of 79th Street and King Drive began shooting. A bullet went through the door of her car and struck her ankle, her mother said.
In addition to Foreman, who lived in the 4300 block of West Ford City Drive, four other people were wounded in Thursday’s shooting.
Two men were taken in critical condition to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn. One, 33, was shot in the neck and the other, 25, suffered gunshot wounds to the arm, side and back, police said.
A 45-year-old woman shot in the arm was taken to Little Company of Mary Hospital in Evergreen Park, along with a 54-year-old woman with wounds to the leg and foot, police said. They were in fair-to-serious condition, according to the Chicago Fire Department.
Bullets riddle the door of a car at the scene of a Far South Side mass shooting late Thursday. | Network Video Productions
Police said the shooting was gang-related.
Foreman’s family members gathered outside Holy Cross early Friday morning as they learned the news of her death. Some cried and others were dazed and said they couldn’t believe what they were being told.
One of her cousins, who asked not to be named, said she was hanging out with Foreman earlier.
“She was a great person,” she said. “We were just saying earlier, we were afraid of these streets.”