A pregnant woman and her boyfriend were shot Monday afternoon while on the porch of a home in the Back of the Yards neighborhood, relatives said.
Doctors at Stroger Hospital later operated on Crystal Myers, relatives said, and delivered the nearly full-term baby boy, but no details were available about his condition.
Her boyfriend, Albert Moore, 24, was shot in the neck and was in critical condition, police said.
Myers, 23, had been due Sept. 30, relatives said. She had been shot in the stomach and was listed in serious condition at Stroger, where family and friends were awaiting updates outside the hospital on the couple late Monday.
The pair were on the porch of Moore’s grandparent’s home in the 5200 block of Sangamon, where they lived, when a gunman sneaked up the gangway, fired about nine shots, and fled, said a female friend who hit the deck when shots rang out and didn’t want to be identified.
“I didn’t know she was hit until we got up and she wouldn’t get up,” she said.
Other friends and family members who were on the porch at the time, including an infant, were uninjured.
Before going on maternity leave, Myers was a concession stand cashier at Wrigley Field, friends said. Moore also worked there on occasion. Cubs spokesman Julian Green confirmed with Levy Restaurants, which handles concessions at Wrigley Field, that Myers is an employee of Levy and works at the ballpark.
Myers and Moore had planned to move to Iowa at the beginning of September, but Moore’s girlfriend delayed the trip to attend a traffic court date she’d been assigned after she was in a car accident, said Tyler Thomas, Moore’s grandfather.
Police are looking into whether the shooting is connected to a fatal shooting that happened the previous day less than a block away.
Just after 6 p.m. Sunday, officers responding to a call of more Back of the Yards gunfire in the 5200 block of South Sangamon found a 19-year-old man shot multiple times. He was taken to Stroger Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, authorities said. His name has not been released.
Thomas said his grandson was not involved in gangs.
“His nickname is ‘Poohman,’ been that since he was little. That ain’t no gang nickname,” he said. “He mind his own business.”
The couple wanted to move, in part, to escape the very violence they fell victim to.
“Somebody’s always getting killed,” Thomas said. “It’s this gangbanging stuff.”
The tally of Labor Day weekend violence was at 65 shot, with 13 of those killed. That exceeded last year’s Labor Day weekend fatalities, when 8 people were killed out of 54 shot.
