The mother of a 7-year-old boy fatally shot in East Chicago this week says that she plans to move her family from the city, saying that the pain would be too great if they stayed in their home near the scene of the killing.
Jeremiah Moore was struck in the head when someone opened fire on the van he was riding in early Tuesday, the city's police chief said.
The shooting occurred at an intersection in East Chicago early Tuesday and five shots were fired, Chief Jose Rivera said in a post on Facebook.
Officers first rushed to the scene of the shooting and then to St. Catherine's Hospital, where officers observed a van drive onto the emergency room ramp at a high rate of speed and a woman exit the vehicle carrying Moore who had an apparent gunshot wound to his head, Rivera said.
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He later died from his injuries.
“It's never going to be okay...I just want to know why? Why? What was your point? You hurt more than just my baby. You hurt and entire community,” Olligene Holiness, Moore's mother, said.
Inside the van were three other children and two adults, Rivera said. The van was held for evidence and inside it were a gun, spent shell casings, a 30-round magazine and blood splatter Rivera said.
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Holiness says she moved her children to East Chicago to escape Chicago’s violence, but now she says the first thing she wants to do is move out.
“We can look out our window, and see where my son’s life was taken,” she said. “That is something very traumatic. Especially for my nine-year-old son, who was sitting directly next to his brother and watched him take his last breath.”
No suspects are in custody, and an investigation remains ongoing.
