Jacele was not the only one hit. Her 17-year-old cousin was left in serious condition with wounds to his neck and chest — he had jumped forward when the shooting began to protect the 4-year-old. A 15-year-old girl emerged from inside the crime scene hours later with a gunshot wound to her head.
Before the shooting began just before 8 p.m., Gresham had stepped away from her car, parked in front of a house on the 7000 block of South Justine Street that was adorned with star-shaped balloons.
Jacele goofed around with her cousin inside. She grabbed the steering wheel and pretended to drive.
Jacele and her cousin were alone in the car while Gresham was gathering her two other kids. Then someone in a passing vehicle started shooting at the car.
The gunfire left shell casings clustered near the mouth of an alley on Justine yards from the party, which continued after the shooting and into Saturday morning.
The shooting brought dozens of police in marked and unmarked cars to an area already saturated with police because of pervasive gunfire and gang conflicts.
Ruthenia Patterson turned onto 71st Street from Ashland Avenue a few minutes after the shooting happened and saw the chaos and blue lights before her.
“Oh my god, your heart starts to pound, you just don’t know what’s going on,” she said.
Her heart raced, her mind jumped to possible conclusions. She was worried it could have been one of her grand-kids, and she wondered how the summer will be when a cool spring night can be so violent.
And she struggled with the idea of a kid getting shot in the head.
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“There’s nothing nobody could tell me that makes sense for a 4-year-old to get shot. Nothing, nothing.”
Tribune reporters Lauren Zumbach and Rosemary Regina Sobol contributed to this report.
Photo: Paramedics treat a 15-year-old victim of a shooting in the 7000 block of South Justine Street on May 22, 2015. (E. Jason Wambsgans, baiduhai)