A 73-year-old man was shot during an attempted robbery early Thursday in the West Lawn neighborhood on Chicago's Southwest Side.
The victim, Ubaldo Lazaro, was walking in the 6100 block of South Kenneth when two people got out of an SUV and tried to rob him, according to police. When Lazaro resisted, one of the would-be robbers shot him in the stomach, got back in the vehicle, and sped away.
"He's really sweet," said niece Maria Castenada. "Why would somebody hurt a person like him?"
According to police in Hammond, the case may be connected with another robbery that took place there earlier this week.
In that case, two men jumped out of a car in the early hours of the morning, drew what appear to be guns, and then robbed a 33-year-old woman and her 11-year-old daughter as they walked down the street.
Police are investigating leads in both cases, and exploring whether or not they are connected.
Residents in the neighborhood said that the armed robbers left the scene of Thursday's shooting empty-handed, and they weren't even aware that he had been shot initially.
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"He must have been sitting directly on the puddle because until they picked him up I didn't see it," Carolina Rosado said.
Lazaro was shot in front of Rosado's house. She ran to the window and then came out to see the man sitting on the ground, bleeding from his wound.
"It's just scary to think that my daughter was sleeping in the living room and what if that bullet would have gone through," she said.
Lazaro was taken to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he is listed in stable condition, according to police, but the shooting has rattled residents in the neighborhood.
"We babysit children, my grandkids," one neighbor said. "So of course we're scared."
