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CHICAGO – Two men who opened fire on a crowd of people gathered for a baby shower, injuring six people, including two children, may have played a role in a gang conflict, the police said Sunday.
Authorities only have "bits and pieces of information" about what happened at the family reunion in Chicago because witnesses do not cooperate, a police spokesman said, but investigators hope that the severity of the injuries inflicted on the children will push somebody to talk.
"It is a very tragic incident.You have two young children, one 8 years old and the other 10 years old, who clings to life," said the Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi.
At least a dozen people were gathered in front of a house decorated with balloons for the baby shower when two armed men approached on foot and started firing around 18:30. Saturday, said Guglielmi.
The gunmen fired several shots and fled into an alley, he said.
An 8-year-old boy was shot in the chest and back and a 10-year-old girl in the leg. Both children were in critical but stable condition. Their names have not been revealed.
Four other people were also affected: three men aged 23 to 48 and a 29-year-old woman. The woman was hospitalized in critical condition and the two younger men were in stable condition.
The condition of the eldest man was unknown and Guglielmi stated that it was not clear if the injured woman was perhaps the pregnant person.
People rushed inside the house when the shooting started. Children playing in the yard would have begun to pile up while they were trying to get through the door.
"We were trying to get the kids out of the way, they were going to be crushed," said Richard Nix, whose grandson was taking the shower, at the Chicago Tribune. "These are just children sitting in front of the porch in front of the house, they were playing and the shooting started."
The shooting occurred in the West Englewood neighborhood in Chicago's south end, and investigators said it was retaliation for a previous incident, the spokesman said. .
"This is part of a larger conflict taking place in this region," Guglielmi said.
Another shootout occurred Sunday morning about three blocks from the house where the gunfire broke out, he said, but it was unclear whether there was any link.
Authorities have struggled to contain violence in Chicago, the third largest city in the country. Police said 561 homicides were committed in the city last year, a total that exceeded the number of murders committed in New York and Los Angeles combined.
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