Zayden Garrett will be a Ninja Turtle this Halloween. But first, the 7-year-old had to get through his second surgery of the week, to remove a bullet that struck him in the back earlier this week while he waited for his parents to return with pizza.
Zayden and his 27-year-old uncle were both wounded Monday night in their West Pullman home when someone fired shots from the street in the 11600 block of South Yale Avenue, police said. Zayden’s uncle was also recovering, according to relatives. Police said Wednesday that no one was in custody as detectives continued their investigation.
Outside Comer Children’s Hospital in Hyde Park, where Zayden was being treated and his family held vigil, his grandmother Rosie Liggins on Wednesday pleaded for anyone with information about the shooting to come forward before she addressed the shooter.
“Wherever you are, please turn yourself in,” said Liggins, 45. “He is 7 years old. This did not have to happen.”
Liggins gestured at the second-grader’s twin brother, who stood with his mother’s arms around him in a Spiderman T-shirt — a nod to Zayden’s love of the character. Wednesday was the day the brothers saw each other for the first time since the shooting.
“He’s supposed to be at school, coming home, getting on our nerves,” Liggins said. “But instead, he’s up there, and we’re down here.”
A friend of the family who asked to only be identified by her first name, Tanisha, brought her dog, Jet, to the news conference outside the hospital as a “morale booster.” She said she wanted to make sure Chicago would not “see this as just another victim of gun violence.”
“A lot of people just kind of numb to it,” she said. “But every story is important. Every victim is important.”
Liggins said Zayden has been able to open his eyes and knows that his family is there talking to him. They have been telling his twin that Zayden will be OK and will come home.
She said things have been “a little bit hectic” since the gunshot detection service Shot Spotter went out of use last month and said she believed it was making criminals more confident about behaving badly.
“People think ‘Oh, well, they’re not going to get to us real soon, so now we can do whatever it is that we want to do,’“ she said. “Now for the police to come, you’ve got to call the police.”
After the news conference wrapped up, friends and family lingered outside the hospital on South Cottage Grove Avenue. Zayden’s twin brother careened through the crowd on an e-scooter while people signed a poster for his hospital room.
Then Liggins got some good news.
“They got the bullet out,” she said. “There’s just a few fragments left.” The boy’s chest was closed. His recovery could begin.