In the middle of a Wednesday afternoon, in a neighborhood where the calls for peace are as constant as the traffic, the unthinkable happened on the South Side of Chicago just steps away from the sanctuary of St. Sabina Church. It wasn’t just the daylight that made the shooting so chilling, but the sheer brazenness of the shooters that left one woman dead and a baby without her mother forever.
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A witness said they were on their way home from work on Wednesday (Feb. 4) when they began recording, CBS News reported. The harrowing clip captured at least three masked gunmen— in broad daylight— spraying a white Chevy sedan with a hail of gunfire after it crashed into a GMC van on E. 79th and South May Street in the city’s Auburn Gresham neighborhood.
Inside the car was a 26-year-old woman, identified as Gabryel Ayers by Cook County Crime Stoppers Thursday, a 27-year-old man and a baby in the backseat, police said. More than 50 shots were fired at the white car, based on evidence markers on the ground.
The shooters could be seen running to a red Alfa Romeo and firing even more shots before fleeing the scene. The van’s driver refused medical treatment, according to FOX 32 Chicago.
The witness recalled seeing the little girl, still strapped in her car seat, holding a lollipop and crying after the shooting. The child, who’s less than a year old, miraculously was not injured.
“You know, there’s a baby in the car. These animals have no value on life,” Ayers’ godfather Pastor Kirk Bell said, ABC 7 Chicago reported. “This is nothing to them. They need to clean this city up. They need to. There’s gangs, and there’s shooting and the killing. It’s just unbelievable.”
Ayers, while sitting in the passenger seat, was shot multiple times. She was taken to Little Company of Mary hospital, where police said she was listed in critical condition. Around 6:00 p.m., police confirmed she died at the hospital. The driver, who hasn’t been identified publicly, was shot in the buttocks and arm. He’s listed in good condition after being transported to Christ Hospital.
“They all had long guns. It’s just crazy,” Father Michael Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina and social activist, said. “Somebody needs to be held accountable and if anybody knows who did that I think we got some good shots off the cameras on the buildings over there. I just want them caught.”
No one is in custody and detectives are currently investigating.
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