Blinking red and green letters advertising Body Factory Nutrition mixed with light from the street lamps and squad cars as police clustered in the intersection of South Laflin and West 51st Streets.
Four people, including a 13-year-old girl, were shot inside the New City business, which advertised Zumba class by its entrance, around 8:30 p.m. Monday.
A half hour after the shooting, officers had taped off the apartment building the business occupied and a grassy lot on the south side of 51st Street.
Inside the studio a woman was silhouetted standing beneath a garland of red, green and white balloons. Others milled back and forth or sat on the floor on their phones. A stroller was visible inside the door.
A neighbor leaned against his white truck, watching the people gathered in the studio and the police gathered in the street. He’d been sitting in his car on 51st when he heard the shots, he said. Ordinarily he parked on Laflin, right in the path where he figured the bullets must have traveled.
Police said the victims reported hearing gunshots and breaking windows before they were wounded. Two women, ages 48 and 57, were taken to University of Chicago Hospital in good condition with gunshot wounds to the left arm and right finger. The girl was taken to Comer Children’s Hospital in fair condition with a gunshot wound to the lower back and a 29-year-old man was taken to University of Chicago Hospital in good condition with a gunshot wound to the back of the neck, police said.
Around 9:30, an officer approached a pair of men waiting on the curb and asked if they spoke English. When they shook their heads no, he said he’d come back with a Spanish speaker.
Inside the studio, a woman gathered a toddler into her arms. People began to leave: first a man, talking on the phone and pacing as cars drove past on the reopened street, then two women, carrying a plastic bin of clothes between them.
An elderly man hurried over and asked two men waiting on the curb what had happened. His son was over here, he said. One of the waiting men made a finger gun and pointed it at the building.
“The building got shot up?” the elderly man asked.
The pair nodded in unison.
Police said no one was in custody in connection with the shooting. Area detectives were investigating.