Shooting Outside Chicago Funeral Home, 15 Injured

Chicago police investigate the scene of a mass shooting where more then a dozen people were shot in the Gresham neighborhood, on July 21, 2020. Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times/AP

Fifteen people were wounded late Tuesday in a shooting on Chicago’s South Side outside a funeral home, police said.

The shooting occurred around 6:30 p.m. in Chicago’s Auburn Gresham neighborhood, specifically the 1000 block of W. 79th St, where Rhodes Funeral Home is located.

First Deputy Superintendent Eric Carter, who spoke at the scene Tuesday night, said that multiple people who attended a funeral at the venue were shot at from a passing SUV. He added that some people among the mourners returned fire.

The SUV later crashed and the occupants fled in several directions. A person of interest was being questioned Tuesday night but no arrests had been made, said police spokesman Hector Alfaro.

The Chicago Fire Department transported multiple victims to nearby hospitals in serious condition, spokesman Larry Langford told reporters.

Nearby hospitals, the Advocate Christ Medical Center and the University of Chicago Medical Center, received most of the wounded victims, according to CBS Chicago. The exact number of victims is unclear because people fled the scene.

Two victims were found several blocks from the shooting site and were “self-transporting” to seek medical care, the Chicago Fire Department said, according to the station. Among the patients they transported to hospitals, one woman was shot multiple times, the department added.

Chicago police investigate the scene of a mass shooting where more then a dozen people were shot in the Gresham neighborhood, on July 21, 2020. Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times/AP

The shooting late Tuesday comes after 70 people were shot, 10 fatally, in separate incidents across Chicago over the weekend, from Friday afternoon to early Monday.

President Donald Trump on Monday said that the administration will deploy more federal law enforcement personnel to Chicago and other major cities facing a surge in violence.

“New York and Chicago and Philadelphia and Detroit and Baltimore … we’re not going to let this happen in our country,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “We will have more federal law enforcement. That I can tell you.” He also said Oakland, California, could see federal agents.

“All run by Democrats … very liberal Democrats,” he added.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot had threatened to sue if Trump acted without her permission.

On Tuesday, she said that the White House will send agents from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

“Unlike what happened in Portland, what we will receive is resources that are going to plug in to the existing federal agencies that we work with on a regular basis to help manage and suppress violent crime,” she said. “I’ve been very clear that we welcome actual partnership, but we do not welcome dictatorship,” according to USA Today.

“Under no circumstances will I allow Donald Trump’s troops to come to Chicago and terrorize our residents,” she wrote on Twitter late Tuesday.

Trump has decried the demonstrators in Portland as “anarchists” and said on Sunday that he is trying “to help Portland, not hurt it.”

“We must protect Federal property, AND OUR PEOPLE. These were not merely protesters, these are the real deal!” Trump added.

Jack Phillips and The Associated Press contributed to this report.