16-Year-Old Girl Shot, Killed In Roseland
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A 16-year-old girl died Monday night, after she was dropped off at a Far South Side Hospital, after she was shot in the head in the Roseland neighborhood.
Taylor Fitting, 16, was shot in the head in the 11200 block of South Normal Avenue at about 9:25 p.m. Monday. Someone dropped her off at Roseland Community Hospital a short time later, and she was transferred to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where she was pronounced dead at 11:35 p.m.
CBS 2's Derrick Blakley reports friends described Taylor as both troubled and talented. She had a tumultuous family life and hated school, but also had plenty of friends.
Relatives said she was killed because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
At the North Beverly home where she lived with her grandmother, Taylor's family members were stunned that she'd been shot and killed.
Her aunt, Mary Lynn Radloff said, "Everybody loved her, everybody wanted to be her friend. Just a good kid, had some trouble, but she was a good kid."
Taylor didn't grow up with her dad, and didn't want to live with her mom in Tinley Park. A sophomore at Morgan Park High School, she'd been held back a year for cutting classes and truancy.
Monday night, she hit the streets with friends in a car. When she left home, she told her boyfriend and grandmother she'd be back in 20 minutes. She was out joyriding with friends in the nearby Roseland neighborhood, on the 11200 block of South Normal Avenue, when shots were fired.
One woman in the neighborhood said she heard two quick shots.
Surveillance video footage, obtained only by CBS 2, shows a car pulling up to Roseland Community Hospital, and Taylor's friends rolling her inside in a wheelchair, then leaving.
Police were searching for the driver of that car, but local community activist Andrew Holmes said he's spoken to the girl who was behind the wheel.
"She panicked," he said. "Fearful for her life, and just scared, didn't know exactly what to do. But she did the right thing to take her to a hospital."
Holmes urged the driver to talk to police, and asked anyone who knows anything about the shooting to call police. He said he's offering a $1,000 reward for information.
Taylor's family said she was highly creative, and wanted to be a photographer.
No one was in custody for the shooting as of Tuesday evening.
