Two Chicago girls inside Pizza Hut injured after gunfire erupts outside

CHICAGO (FOX 32 News) - Two young girls were wounded after gunfire shattered a restaurant window in the Grand Crossing neighborhood early Friday evening.

“All of a sudden we heard pow, pow, pow, three shots and the girls started bleeding,” said Pastor James Owolabi with New Beginnings Church and 190 Chicago. He was in the Pizza Hut at 67th and Stony Island around 6:30 p.m. to pick up pizza for the church’s youth program.

Owolabi said a bullet came flying through the glass window where he and other customers, including two young girls, were waiting for food.

The girls, around five and six years old, were hit in the arm and back by fragments from the shattered glass. Pastor Owolabi rushed them into the back for safety as police responded to the scene.

“I think it was something going on outside and one of the bullets just went through the glass. I don’t think they were aiming for anybody, any of us in there, I just thought it was outside and they were trying to shoot,” Owolabi said.

A few hours earlier in the North Austin Neighborhood, an employee of the Popeyes restaurant in the 5500 Block of West North Avenue was shot and wounded as he walked to his car in the parking lot.

At least thirteen bullet shells were marked in the parking lot. Police say someone ran up from a side street and opened fired. They say the victim was a documented gang member. He fled down North Avenue where he collapsed outside another restaurant.

These two shootings are just a reminder to people on the south and west sides of how dangerous it can be on any given night in the summer when the warm weather seems to fuel violence.

“This is a quiet community at times and then when it gets hot, it just gets ridiculous where they trying to get one person and they hitting innocent people,” said Tracy Brown, who was outside the Pizza Hut.

“It’s ridiculous to me because you can’t even go get nothing to eat without somebody getting shot,” said Brandi Spruell, who lives nearby.

Police said one of girls was taken to Comer’s Children’s Hospital for treatment of non-life threatening injuries sustained from the shattered glass. The other young girl apparently did not require treatment.