Mother ‘grateful we are alive’
Hazel Crest home sprayed with gunfire with at least 30 shots, police say
Lakeisha Williams said her seventh grade daughter had just returned home from school Tuesday to the family’s home on a quiet Hazel Crest block when “I just heard gunshots everywhere.”
Williams said she told her and her two other children to just “drop to the floor.”
Nobody was hurt in what police believe was a case of mistaken identity, noting Williams’ family has lived in the house just three months. Police said the prior occupants were involved in illegal activity, although they didn’t elaborate.
Standing outside her home in the 17100 block of Longfellow Avenue on Good Friday morning, Williams said she was “grateful we are alive.”
“I thank God for allowing me and my children to be here, to still be alive,” she said at a news conference. “Me and my children could have been dead and gone.”
At least 30 shots were fired, and police said at least three shooters, wearing drawn, hooded sweatshirts and masks, were in a white, compact four-door imported sedan. A second vehicle may have been involved, police said, asking anyone with information call the department at 708-3359640.
Williams’ home is about a block south of the Hazel Crest police station.
Her 13-year-old daughter had arrived home at about 3:30 p.m., and the shooting took place roughly 20 minutes later, according to authorities.
Williams’ 14- and 15-year-old sons were also at home. All three children attend schools in Hazel Crest Elementary District 152 ½ and all are on the honor roll, Williams said.
Early Walker, a businessman and founder of I’m Telling, Don’t Shoot, said the group is offering a reward of $10,000 for information leading to the arrest and successful prosecution of those involved.
Founded last summer, the group, by offering large cash rewards, hopes to encourage people to report information about gun-related violence. Walker was also involved recently in setting up Operation Safe Pump, which is aimed at deterring carjackings at gas stations.
“No family should feel unsafe in their home,” Walker said. “It’s going to take the community to solve this.”
He urged the shooters to “do the right thing, turn yourself in.”
Hazel Crest Mayor Vernard Alsberry Jr. vowed that those responsible for the shooting will be apprehended.
“We will find them,” he said.
He and police said they do not believe Williams and her family were intended targets, with the mayor saying people who lived there before her were “connected with illegal activity.”
“We stand together against this kind of senseless violence,” Alsberry said. “This is a quiet block, these are long-term homeowners.”