Parents and teachers were on edge in the wake of the shooting that erupted near an elementary school in Little Village Tuesday morning.
Gigi Tolentino, whose 4-year-old daughter Angela attends Head Start at Little Village Academy Elementary School, 2620 S. Lawndale Ave., said she was concerned.
“As a parent, [I am] very worried…you’re bringing your kids to school, and then you’re dropping off not knowing what’s going on,” Tolentino, 35, told the Sun-Times outside the school about 3 p.m.
The attack happened about 8:40 a.m. in the 2700 block of South Ridgeway Avenue, around the corner from the school.
After being shot, the motorist, a 31-year-old man, lost control of the vehicle and then crashed into a parked car as the assailant fled the scene. No one else was hurt.
The victim was taken in critical condition to Mount Sinai Hospital, said police, who added no arrests had been made.
Lillian Lazu, principal of Little Village Elementary, said in a statement the attack had nothing to do with the school and an earlier lock down had been lifted.
“Safety continues to be my top priority, which is why I am writing to address a situation impacting our school day,” Lazu said in the statement. “We placed our school on lockdown today in response to police activity near our school building. This activity is unrelated to our school, and all of our students and staff members are safe.”
“CPD informed us that it has determined that it is safe to lift our lockdown,” Lazu continued in the statement.
As classes let out about 3 p.m., parents, students and teachers streamed quickly in and around the building.
Tolentino believes school staffers could have better informed parents, such as via email or phone calls “as soon” as something happened.
“Because us, as parents, we worry,” Tolentino said.
Maria Alarcon, who has taught at the school for six years, said students and teachers in the school’s smaller building heard the shots before going into lockdown. She thought music would help.
“I teach third grade, so we kind of went into a cute little, you know, ‘Let’s play some music to kind of block everything out,”‘ Alarcon said.
Alarcon praised the school and its principal for their actions, including effectively communicating, during the emergency.
Teachers also made sure the students didn’t know exactly what was happening, she said.
“The shades were down. The rooms were dark. But [it was] business as usual,” she said, adding the kids continued their schoolwork.
Alarcon worried that, had the shooting happened “even 20 minutes earlier,” children on their way to their classes in the main building would have been exposed to the violence.
“The timing is really scary,” she said.
Area 4 detectives are investigating.
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