eileen

Registered Nurse
Shot: February 20 1997
Chicago Illinois

I came up the stairs from the Blue Line train

Eileen: "That night it was misty and foggy as I came up the stairs from the Blue Line train. There's a pedestrian walkway at the Jefferson Park terminal to get to the residential area. I could see someone standing at the top of the stairs. He was staring at me and as I walked past I saw another kid who looked younger. I knew something was going on. I was going down the stairs and kept walking to the curb. I remember looking at my foot coming off the curb, and running into someone. He nudged me with his shoulder at my sternum and it was enough to knock me back. As soon as I looked up the younger kid was right behind me and the kid who was at the top of the stairs was at my side.

Finally he put the gun to my head

"He said, 'Hey! Can I have a dollar?' I said, 'No, I don't have any money.' He said, 'I know you've got money, give me a dollar?' The conversation continued like that and then I saw he had a gun. He said, 'Bitch, I know you just came from work, I know you've got money!' As I refused to give him money he got more aggressive. We walked about two hundred feet in a couple of minutes. Finally he put the gun to my head and said, 'Bitch, I know you have money, you give me your money now or I'm going to shoot you!' I didn't have money and I didn't know what to do. I was thinking, nothing I say now is going to satisfy this kid. I backed-up a couple of steps to break away from him. While he had the gun to my head, the other kid was pulling at my backpack, throwing me off balance. I took a couple of steps back and took off running. I remember looking over my shoulder and he was pointing the gun at me. By the second or third stride I heard him fire. He fired three times and I felt it hit me. There was a tremendous amount of pain in my back. I remember feeling really dazed and looking down at my hand and it was remarkable, like my hand was completely detached from my body. I was holding it with my other arm and it was all cramped up, in a fist. I dropped to my knees.

I got right back up

"I think I fell forward onto my face and then I got right back up. Before, when I had looked back at him, he was poised so he could take off right away. He had his one arm stretched out with the gun and the rest of his body was turned the other way. I didn't feel like I was going to get shot again. I got up and I saw this door open and it was a garden apartment and I walked in. The girl was in her living room and she said, 'What are you doing?' It was weird, because we immediately recognized each other. She was a friend of my friend's sister. I said, 'I think I just got shot.' She said, 'What? Well you look...' and she stopped and she said, 'Well, why don't you just sit down? I'm going to call an ambulance.'