GRAND BOULEVARD — When 17-year-old Reyoun Burnette got to the CTA bus stop at 47th Street and Calumet Avenue to see the shelter's glass blown out by a bullet, she was nervous. But she wasn't surprised.
"We're pretty used to violence in this community," said Burnette, on her daily commute home from DuSable High School in Bronzeville. "But it still makes me feel unsafe every time I see it."
Around 3:10 p.m. Wednesday, about two hours before Burnette got to the bus stop, three teenagers were standing at the same spot when a car rolled up and someone fired shots out the window, according to Officer Nicole Trainor, a Chicago Police spokeswoman.
Two of the teens, 16 and 18, brought themselves to Mercy Hospital, where both their conditions were "stable," Trainor said. The 18-year-old had been shot in his left thigh, and the 16-year-old had been shot in hand, foot and both calves.
The 16-year-old was later transferred to Comer Children's Hospital, Trainor said.
The third teen, 17, was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he was listed in good condition with a gunshot wound in his left hip, Trainor said.
The teens were shot outside JJ Beauty, a clothing and electronics store in the 300 block of East 47th Street. Store manager Jay, who declined to say his last name, said shootings on the block have become routine.
According to DNAinfo records, someone was shot on the same block on Sunday, and last month another shooting down the street left a man dead and another wounded.
"It's gotten so much worse just since last summer. ... It's gotten so that people don't want to come shop here, because this is always happening," said Jay, who more than once has had to replace windows shattered by stray bullets. "There used to be more of a police presence here. If they don't have someone standing out here clearing people out and writing tickets, it's only going to get worse."
Bomani, a nearby resident and regular shopper at JJ Beauty who declined to give his last name because he's politically active, said an emerging illegal economy has had above-the-line businesses reeling on the block.
"We're getting all these groups out here selling loose cigarettes, and sooner or later they all start beefing and fighting with each other," Bomani said. "Now this has to be the fifth time this year that this [CTA bus] shelter has gotten blown out from a shooting. So I'm wondering, how long until an elderly person or a young child catches one of these bullets while waiting for the bus?"
Bomani, Burnette said, is far from the only person to consider this possibility.
"A lot of kids at school don't even want to come in every day, because they're worried about what could happen on the way there," Burnette said. "And the parents don't want to send them. No one wants to have their babies out in this kind of environment."
Police said three "persons of interest" are in custody for the shooting.
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