Toddler’s condition still critical after apparent road rage shooting on Lake Shore Driveon April 7, 2021 at 8:41 pm

A 21-month-old boy remains in critical condition Wednesday morning after he was shot in the head in an apparent road-rage incident Tuesday on Lake Shore Drive near Grant Park.

The boy suffered a brain injury and was at Lurie Children’s Hospital, according to Dr. Marcelo Malakooti, medical director of the hospital’s pediatric intensive care unit. There was no change to his condition Wednesday morning, according to the Chicago Police Department.

Lurie issued a statement confirming the boy’s condition, adding that the hospital’s pediatric intensive care unit team “is working around the clock on his care.”

Another update would be issued at 3:30 p.m., according to the hospital.

A dispute over one car not letting another car into a lane of traffic about 11 a.m. on northbound Lake Shore Drive just south of Soldier Field apparently led to the shooting, Chicago Police Cmdr. Jake Alderden said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon.

Both cars continued north and shooting began on Lake Shore Drive just west of the Shedd Aquarium. Bullet casings were recovered over a two-block stretch as the cars proceeded north, he said.

One person was being questioned by Area Three detectives in connection with the shooting Tuesday evening, police said. Charges were not filed Wednesday morning.

Community activist Ja’Mal Green, father of a 2-year-old, is personally funding a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the gunman.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot has called the shooting a case of “simple, stupid road rage.”

But, she was reminded Wednesday that the incident — in broad daylight, in the heart of the city — was just the latest in an avalanche of shootings on Chicago area expressways.

There were two on Easter and another Tuesday night. That makes 57 already this year — nearly triple last year’s total and more expressway shootings than any other big city in the nation.

Lightfoot was asked what CPD is doing to stop expressway shootings and whether motorists should be concerned about their safety.

“I’ll push back a little bit. Unfortunately, we are continuing to see — not only in Chicago, but across the country — an increase in violence in cities that we saw really, I think, arising from the pandemic,” the mayor said.

“We are constantly calibrating our deployments across the city — both based upon historic trends, but also more recent data. But the issues on the highways are real.”

The city, she said, will “have to have continued partnership” with the Illinois State Police and Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart “to make sure that we’re doing everything we can.”

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

Still, Lightfoot said Chicago is “ultimately fighting a losing battle” without “common sense gun control” that only Congress can enact.

“A lot of the guns that end up on the streets in Chicago come from places like Indiana and other states that have very lax gun laws. Whether it’s in background checks. Whether it’s the number of guns you can buy. How they can move from one person to another. We constantly see … guns that were purchased, but end up on the street in a crime within three years,” she said.

“We are gonna continue to fight the fight here in Chicago. But we have to have help from the federal government. If you can go over the border in Indiana and literally buy military-grade weapons at any quantity that you want if you’ve got the dollars to pay for it, what does that mean for the public safety of our city? … We need some help from the federal government because there are too many people who have ill intentions that are getting access to firearms. We’ve got to have federal authorities step up starting with passing universal background checks.”

The push for universal background checks is not new. It’s simply gone nowhere in Congress. But, Lightfoot said, the political tide has turned.

“I’m hopeful now — with a Democratic president who supports it and two chambers of Congress that are controlled by Democrats — we’ll actually finally get it done. And then, we’ll be better situated to bring more peace to our city because we’re gonna stop the flow of illegal guns onto our streets,” she said.

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