Back of the Yards home riddled with bullets

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Residents are terrified after a home in the Back of the Yards neighborhood was shot up in broad daylight.

Police have not confirmed that an assault weapon was used in the attack, but residents said that's what it sounded like.

Agustina Herrera pointed to a bullet hole in the front window of her home in the 4300-block of S. Marshfield after a gunman opened fire Wednesday afternoon during a drive-by shooting. Other bullets pierced a bedroom wall and the furnace.

In Spanish, the mother of two said he was doing dishes in the back of her first floor apartment in when gunfire erupted around 1 p.m.

No one was hurt in the attack that left the majority of the three-flat building riddled with bullets.

Alderman Raymond Lopez (15th Ward) happened to be a block away talking to a resident about something else when he said he heard as many as 40 shots ring out.

"For us to have this kind of mass shooting in the neighborhoods with a semi-automatic assault weapon is just terrible," Lopez said.

The alderman says the shooting could be the result of a gang conflict in the area, adding that someone living in an upstairs unit may have been the intended target of the violence. A woman who asked not to be identified just wants the violence to end.

"This could have been a crime scene yesterday and the saddest part is that it could have been a child that was shot," she said.

Marco Herrera, 13, and his 11-year-old sister Ana have started a strange hobby: collecting empty bullet casings.

Neither one was home from school when bullets started to fly Wednesday, but they say with no end in sight of the ongoing neighborhood violence, they won't have any trouble adding to their collection.

"My parents think that there's no safety here because if we go everywhere, if we change house, it will still be the same thing," Marco Herrera said.

Ald. Lopez said he has been in contact with CPD Supt. Eddie Johnson and other law enforcement officials regarding the ongoing violence in his ward. He also said he plans to introduce a resolution calling for the reinstatement of the assault weapons ban at the next city council meeting.