Woman shot to death outside Austin elementary school

SUN-TIMES MEDIA WIRE - An Indiana woman was shot to death early Monday outside an Austin neighborhood elementary school on the West Side.

Officers responded at 1:54 a.m. to a call of a person shot and found 20-year-old Jamayah Fields lying on the sidewalk in the 5000 block of West Maypole, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

Fields was shot in the head and pronounced dead at the scene at 2:05 a.m., police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office said. She lived in the 3700 block of Eastmont Drive in South Bend, Indiana.

As officers investigated on the block and searched for shell casings, her body could be seen covered by a white sheet near the playlot for Spencer Elementary Technology Academy.

Two women approached the crime scene tape, one of whom lives on the block and said she hears shots fired “damn near” every day.

“I wonder how she ended up right there,” said the woman, who asked not to be identified but added that she has lived on the block her entire life and attended Spencer. She also said her father was gunned down last year in West Garfield Park, but did not want to provide further information.

“Who was she?” the woman asked of the 25-year-old victim lying on the sidewalk outside the elementary school. “I hope it wasn’t anyone I know.”