CHICAGO — Two men are in custody in connection with last week’s shooting in a Chicago park that left 13 people injured, including a 3-year-old boy, authorities said Monday.
The men, both 22, were arrested around 7:30 p.m. Sunday in an abandoned building in the 5200 block of South Marshfield Avenue, police said. No charges have been filed.
One of the men has been identified as the shooter in Thursday’s attack in Cornell Square Park and the other as “one of the individuals who participated in the shooting,” according to a police report.
Police were processing the two men Monday morning and planned to bring them to Area Central police headquarters.
Police spokesman Adam Collins said detectives were “interviewing several people of interest.” He declined to release details and added that “this remains an ongoing investigation.”
The arrests came three days after a gunman opened fire on a basketball court Thursday night.
Three-year-old Deonta Howard, the youngest victim, is walking, talking and eating, his grandmother Semehca Nunn, 39, said Monday morning.
Nunn’s fiance, Curtis Harris, 37, was shot in the thigh and released from the hospital the next morning. But Deonta was shot in the face and will need plastic surgery, his family said.
Nunn said the boy’s injuries weren’t as bad as she was expecting. “I went and saw him yesterday,” she said. “His face looks better than what I thought it was going to look.”
Doctors are waiting for the toddler’s jaw bone to heal before doing surgery, she said. The bullet exited through the boy’s cheek.
Even though her grandson is heavily sedated, Nunn said one of the first things Deonta asked for were his new shoes. “Yeah, he wanted his new shoes, I put them on and he was walking around,” Nunn said. “Some type of Nikes.”
She said no one in her family had received a call from police about anyone being in custody but they saw it on the news. “We’re happy they’re off the street,” Nunn said. “They can’t hurt nobody else.”
Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said a “military-grade” weapon was used in the attack and called it “a miracle” that no one died.
