Charinez Jefferson was walking near her Chicago home with a group of friends around 10 p.m. on Aug. 16 when a gunman emerged from a car spraying bullets at them.
Witnesses say Jefferson begged the gunman not to shoot her because she was pregnant, but she suffered multiple wounds to the head and chest. First responders arrived to find Jefferson in critical condition and in cardiac arrest. She was transported to Advocate Christ Medical Center and placed on advanced life support.
Doctors were able to deliver Jefferson’s baby, but they remain concerned about the amount of time the boy went without oxygen. The baby’s mother was pronounced dead just before 11 p.m..
Doctors say the baby is in critical but stable condition. “The baby is pretty much fighting for his life,” Debbie Jefferson said of her grandson. “He’s going to be OK, because if God wanted him, he would have taken him.” The distraught mother said she has no idea what happened or why someone would shoot her daughter, but she doesn’t believe Charinez was the intended target.
Jajuan Moore, Jefferson’s neighbor and best friend since elementary school, said he heard the gunshots that killed his friend. He looked out his bedroom window, saw Charinez on the ground and a man running away. Moore wants to know, “How could you sit there and gun a pregnant woman down?”
Police continue to search for the gunman.
Read more at MSNBC.com.