Shooting up north:
A 16-year-old boy was seriously wounded early this morning in a shooting on the North Side in the city's Uptown neighborhood.
About 1:41 a.m., the youth told police he was walking from his residence on the 4600 block of North Winthrop Avenue when he heard shots and soon after felt pain in his leg, said Police News Affairs [...].
The boy asked for help from an unknown bystander who drove the youth to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center where his condition was stabilized, [police] said.
The boy suffered wounds to his leg and groin area, police said.
Poor guy. Shot in the leg and groin. Ouch.
Uptown Update gets to the bottom of it pretty quickly though:
- So it all sounded really peculiar. That's why it wasn't a surprise when we got an email from someone who's in the know (who requested anonymity):
The inside scoop on this morning's "shooting"... The bullet had a downward trajectory and the "victim" had powder burns on his clothes. He was tucking a gun in his waistband and accidentally shot himself.
We're guessing he was inside an apartment or house and that's why no one heard the noise of his gun going off.
So it's scary that a 16-year-old kid, who has a 10pm city curfew, was tucking a loaded gun into his pants as part of his going-out-on-the-town ensemble at 1:41am.