Early Sunday, Quantina Harris left a graduation party in the Burnside neighborhood on the South Side to take her children home.
She returned to the party at 89th Street and Cottage Grove Avenue only briefly to talk with her younger brother, who was friends with the graduate, said Harris, 37.
About five minutes later, around 4 a.m., “three boys on bikes” arrived and started shooting at the people gathered outside, wounding eight people, including Harris.
“I was in shock,” Harris said. “I didn’t know where to go. Bullets whizzed past my head. I was so scared.”
Harris’ brother pushed her and told her to start running, so she did, Harris said. She was shot twice in the left leg, but if her brother hadn’t pushed her, Harris said she would have been shot in the back. She was taken to Stroger Hospital and later released, and her brother fell to the ground and avoided being shot, Harris said.
The other seven people wounded, whose ages ranged from 28 to 33, were taken to at least three hospitals: University of Chicago Medical Center and Advocate Trinity Hospital, both of which are in Chicago, and Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn.
At a news conference at Chicago police headquarters on Monday, Chief of Detectives Brendan Deenihan said all victims are going to survive. He couldn’t say how many people were at the party, which originated in an apartment, and said people scattered after the shooting.
“There wasn’t a lot of cooperation to begin with from many of the individuals there, so detectives had to do a lot of follow-up and reinterview people,” said Deenihan. “We’re seeking some cooperation from people who probably have information. So, non-life-threatening injuries. And lot more work to do.”
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Harris did not know the people who shot them, but she had also never been to the apartment before the graduation party, she said. She occasionally has seizures and had two seizures early Sunday because of the shooting, Harris said.
One of the two bullets that hit Harris is still lodged in her left thigh, and though she’s supposed to return to the hospital in a couple of weeks for a follow-up, Harris said she might have them take another look at it Monday.
“I’m in a lot of pain,” Harris said.
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