Woman charged with shooting 15-year-old boy at back-to-school event on South Side of Chicago in 2024
A woman has been charged with shooting a 15-year-old boy outside an indoor track facility near Gately Park in Chicago in 2024, after getting into a fight with another woman during a back-to-school event in the Pullman neighborhood.
Darnisha Jones, 31, is charged with one count of attempted murder and two counts of aggravated battery.
Cook County prosecutors said, on Aug. 24, 2024, a 15-year-old boy, his mother, and two other people were attending a back-to-school event at the track and field facility at Gately Park, at 10201 S. Cottage Grove Av.
Due to the size of the crowd, one of the people the boy was with was bumped into an unknown woman, who told them not to bump into her again. When that person was pushed into her again, she punched them in the face, according to prosecutors.
The 15-year-old intervened and got into a fight with the woman before bystanders broke it up, prosecutors said. A few moments later, the boy, his mother, and a third person were in the parking lot when Jones and the other woman pulled up in a Chevy Tahoe, and the woman gave him the middle finger and stuck her tongue out.
The boy approached the Tahoe and swung his arm into the open window, and Jones told the woman who was with her to lean back before she shot the boy in the torso, according to prosecutors.
The boy was taken to Comer Children's Hospital with a gunshot wound to the spine, and was left confined to a wheelchair.
Jones drove off after the shooting, but prosecutors said police who were on the scene recorded the shooting on body camera video and captured the Tahoe's license plate, which was registered to Jones.
While the boy's mother was able to identify Jones as the shooter the next day, the boy was unable to identify her.
Police later impounded Jones' vehicle, and after she called police to ask about her Tahoe, she stopped responding to detectives.
The Chicago Police Department Fugitive Apprehension Unit tracked her down and arrested her on Monday. At her first court appearance on Wednesday, a judge ordered her held in jail while she awaits trial.
Jones is due back in court on May 5.
