8-year-old boy hurt in Lawndale shooting

An 8-year-old boy was wounded in a shooting Thursday in Lawndale on the West Side.

The boy was in the street about 6 p.m. in the 1800 block of South Kildare Avenue when someone began firing shots, Chicago police said.

He was shot in the knee and was taken by citizens at the scene to Mount Sinai Hospital where his condition was stabilized, police said.

The boy was not the intended target, according to police.

Police tape cordoned off a light-blue Buick on 18th Street. About 30 shell casing markers dotted the road around the car.

Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times

A man and woman who live on the block with their three children said they were in their home when they heard “a lot of shots.”

The couple said they had seen the boy playing before the gunfire rang out.

“It’s dangerous here,” said the man, who declined to give his name. “We want to sell our house and move, but it’s hard.”

Family of the boy who gathered outside of Mount Sinai said he was “OK” but declined to comment further.

Community activist Andrew Holmes told reporters outside of the hospital that the gun violence plaguing the city should be treated as a health crisis.

Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times

“That’s the pandemic, discharging that weapon, and the pain that this baby is going through,” Holmes said, adding that he is concerned about the lasting effects of the gunshot wound on the boy’s body.

“Is he gonna come out limping? Is he gonna come out still in pain? The family want him back the way he was before he came here,” he said.

Holmes urged the community to cooperate with investigators and turn in the gunmen, before another child is marked by gun violence.

“I’m asking the community let’s do what we got to do before the next one gets shot and we gonna be at another hospital. Stop staying I ain’t seen nothing, stop saying I don’t know. Cause guess what? Somebody out there know.”