MORGAN PARK — Friday night was supposed to be a celebration for Summer Moore's family.
The 37-year-old Marquette Park woman was one of about 50 people gathered at her cousin's Morgan Park home to see off a relative to the Simeon Career Academy's prom.
Minutes after the teenager went off to the event, bullets were fired from a car that zoomed down the block.
"There was nothing but ladies and babies," said neighbor Cynthia Muhammad recounting the night's events.
Police said Moore was shot in her chest about 7:50 p.m. while in a front yard in the 11400 block of South Aberdeen Street, a stretch of the neighborhood that Muhammad and other residents say has kept out the gang violence that surrounds it.
"We're just praying families on this block," Muhammad said.
Moore, of the 3100 block of West Marquette Road, was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn where she was pronounced dead at 8:38 p.m., according to the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office.
A mother of three and aspiring nurse, Moore was described as someone who devoted her life to her family.
"She loved her family. All she wanted to do was spend time with her family," said Moore's cousin, Laquitta Williams. "There are other relatives who aren't able to spend as much time with our family, but she was always there for us. She just loved to have fun with her family."
Police have released few details about the case, other than saying that Moore was not the intended target.
By Saturday morning, decorations from the party had been largely cleared from the front yard, but a few golden balloon ribbons remained tied to a chainlink fence in front of the house.
Neighbors and Moore's relatives sat out on their front porches talking about what happened the night before.
The family had been shuttling between two homes on the block entirely carefree where many of the family's relatives lived.
"Nothing ever happens on this block," Williams said one relative said before the shooting.
Shawn Williams, a 9-year-old relative of Moore, said he saw "Auntie Summer" trying to help another aunt for cover when the shooting occurred.
"She was always helping other people," Shawn Williams said.
