Chicago's First Victim Of Gun Violence In 2020 Tells Her Story: 'My Back Is On Fire'
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Only on CBS 2 - Chicago's first victim of gun violence in the new year is sharing her story.
She was celebrating the New Year at 12:14 a.m. when a stray bullet came through a window and hit her in the back. She told CBS 2's Steven Graves her clothes might have saved her life.
It's a new year and new perspective on life for 24-year-old Diamond Levy.
"I'm just very grateful that somebody was watching over me," Levy said.
While grateful to be alive, she's still left with trauma on a day that should be celebrated.
"I'm really paranoid. I don't' want to be sitting by this window right now," Levy said.
It was about 15:00 minutes into 2020. She was watching TV at her boyfriend's family apartment in the 4400 block of West Adams Street in West Garfield Park. That's when a stray bullet came through the second floor window, knocking her off a couch.
"And my back is on fire. I didn't know what it was, but I knew I shouldn't move," Levy said.
The bullet punctured her skin but was lodged into layers of clothing she had on, like a sweater she just got for Christmas from her sister.
"The only way that I can describe it is that the bullet pushed my clothes through my skin," Levy said. "So it never went through the clothes."
She spent the next hours of the new year in a hospital gown, puzzled as to how it happened. Levy thinks it was a part of celebratory gunfire outside and investigators couldn't tell her where the shots came from.
"Not too long ago, I was living on the West Side of Chicago. We moved because of the gun violence," Levy said.
Now, staring at pictures of her injuries, she comes to grips with being Chicago's first gunshot victim of the new year. Something she'd rather not be tied to.
Levy is expected to make a full recovery. She is one of at least five people who have been shot in Chicago this New Year's Day 2020.
At 4:53 a.m., a 21-year-old man found his own way to Stroger Hospital of Cook County after being shot in the lower back. He could not tell officers where it happened.
At 4:59 a.m., a 31-year-old man was shot and wounded in the 6400 block of South Morgan Street in Englewood. His condition was stabilized at the University of Chicago Medical Center.
At 5:43 a.m., a 19-year-old man was shot in the left hip in the 11100 block of South Vernon Avenue in Roseland. His condition was stabilized at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn.
At 5:25 p.m., a 26-year-old man was shot and critically wounded in the 7500 block of South Kingston Avenue in South Shore.
Also early Wednesday morning, shots struck a marked Chicago Police squad car in the 1300 block of South Kilbourn Avenue, and shots were fired at officers – but did not strike anyone – in the 7800 block of South Ridgeland Avenue.
A U.S. Justice Department review released in October found that there are four times more non-fatal shootings than fatal shootings in Chicago. That review calls for training and organizational changes within the police department in order to solve more of these non-fatal shootings like Levy's.
Chicago's interim police Superintendent Charlie Beck is also talking about that report. Only 53% of murders in Chicago were solved in 2019. The report calls for a dedicated homicide unit to solve more cases.
CBS 2 asked Beck about that.
"A number of things are going to occur in the next month or two while I'm here. And one of them will be directly related to those recommendations. And I'll leave it at that," Beck said but he wouldn't list specifics.
