Hope, Change and Gangsta Gunfire On Chicago's South Side

The community Mr. Obama organized remains plagued with crime as the locals haven't quite yet embraced the new era of civility and change. Seems a mere basketball game between two schools, ironically one named Hope, resulted in the shooting of five people Friday night.

A screech of tires, people running, a girl’s scream — those were the only warnings before shots fired outside Dunbar Vocational Career Academy wounded five teenage boys as a basketball game let out Friday evening.

A sixth person, a female, was also trampled in the melee.

As the shots rang out, Shukara Robertson, 16, dove into a pile of snow that had been shoveled outside the school entrance near 31st and King Drive. “People laid on top of me,” said Roberston, a junior at Dunbar.

Just before, she had heard tires spinning on wet pavement, and saw people running. She never saw a car, but said “It looked like a drive-by.”

Kimberly Robertson, 18, ran toward a school door but found it was locked. She threw herself into group huddled against the school steps. “There were like 10 gunshots,” she said.

The shooting occurred as a game between Dunbar and Hope College Prep High School entered triple overtime and some students left early.

Robert McCallum, 18, said he heard a girl scream, looked toward the sound and saw people running. He started running himself, and heard the shots. When he looked back again, “I saw two people laid out on the street.”

Aundra Hicks, 18, heard some people making threats during the game. “Everybody was getting into it.” Outside, she tried to help a boy who had been shot in the leg, but was told by police to wait for an ambulance.

Seven ambulances and 200 police responded, and King Drive was blocked off for a three-block search.

The five wounded teens were in fair to serious condition at hospitals.