Chicago:
Two young brothers were among five people shot and wounded when gunmen fired through the window of a Chicago barbershop, police said Friday.
Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said it’s “heartbreaking” the youths were among the five shooting victims — ages 11, 12, 16, 30 and 40. He said the five remained in serious to critical condition, but all were stable at local hospitals Friday.
The gunmen had walked into the Gotcha Faded barbershop Thursday in the West Garfield Park neighborhood and looked around, moments before firing into the shop from the street, Chicago police Deputy Chief of Patrol Ernest Cato told The Chicago Tribune.
Guglielmi said Friday morning that no arrests had been made but police believe there are at least two suspects and they have “very good” surveillance video from outside of the barbershop.
Detectives were reviewing that video to try to determine where the suspects may have gone in a vehicle after the shooting.
He said the motive in the shooting remained unclear. “We intend to interview the victims, and individuals who were in the store, to try to get a handle on what might have prompted the attack,” Guglielmi said.
Lorenzo Matthews, 11, and Michael Smith, 12, were at the barbershop when they were both shot, their mother, Cierra Mobley, told WLS-TV.
“It’s their first time at the barbershop and it’s somewhere that they really wanted to go. They were only there for like an hour before I got that phone call,” Mobley told the station.
Mobley said Lorenzo had surgery late Thursday night after he was shot three times.
The boys’ uncle, Chris Williams, decried the violence that is impacting children.
“It’s a shame what the world is coming to,” Williams told the Chicago Sun-Times. “Kids can’t even get their hair cut.”
