Young mother paralyzed after being shot driving to laundromat

CHICAGO (WLS) -- A Chicago mother is paralyzed after being shot while driving to the laundromat over Memorial Day weekend.

Just five days shy of her 27th birthday, Precious Land remained hospitalized Monday at Mount Sinai Hospital. She will survive, but never be the same.

Her family, including her children, were struggling to understand.

"It bothers me so bad to see her laying there like that," said Land's mother, Stacey Turner. "And the kids want to see their mom, but I won't let them see her like that."

The young mother got caught in Chicago's epidemic of gun violence while she drove through the 3900-block of West Lexington in the Lawndale neighborhood on the West Side.

A bullet pierced her neck, damaging her spinal cord.

Land was one of nearly 70 Chicago shooting victims during Memorial Day weekend. Her family said her condition remains critical, and she's unable to speak.

"She will be paralyzed from the neck down no matter what," Turner said.

Land worked at O'Hare International Airport for an airline food service provider.

Turner believes her daughter was mistakenly targeted because of the car she was driving - a black Pontiac Grand Prix with dark-tinted windows.

It worried her family.

"I've seen the gang bangers driving that kind of car," Turner said. "I told her, 'Always drive with the windows down. At least they could see you're a woman.'"

More than a week later, Land's mother said Chicago police have yet to contact her.

"I don't hate the police like a lot of people do because they have lives and families that they have to get home to," Turner said. "Maybe there's been so many killings that they haven't gotten to me, but this is going into the second week. ... And I just want to know why my baby's shooting ain't important enough to even come and talk to me."

No one is in custody for the shooting.