Chicago shooting outside funeral home leaves more than a dozen people injured

All victims were adults, and taken to hospital in the area, said police

Fourteen people have been wounded in a shooting outside a Chicago funeral home, authorities said.

The incident took place on Chicago’s South Side on Tuesday, amid an increase in street violence.

Chicago Police Department deputy superintendent Eric Carter said an SUV drove past the funeral home and shot at mourners.

Several targets were said to have exchanged fire with the suspect as he continued down the street, and crashed.

“All we saw was just bodies laying everywhere,” said witness Arnita Geder to NBC Chicago. “Shot up everywhere, all over. Legs, stomach, back, all over the place. We thought it was a war out here.”

Whilst the SUV’s occupants dispersed in “multiple directions”, police said one person was in custody.

All 14 victims, who were adults, were taken to hospitals in the area.

Several people were thought to be in serious or critical condition, said Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot said police were appealing for more information on the shooting, with motives unknown.

“While families were mourning at a funeral in Auburn Gresham, cowardly gunmen opened fire, wounding 14 in a horrific mass shooting,” said mayor Lightfoot. “When a person picks up a gun, we suffer as a city. This cannot be who we are.”

She said some hours earlier that she would not allow “Donald Trump’s troops to come to Chicago and terrorize our residents.”

That came as the Trump administration on Tuesday said federal agents would be deployed to the city, where 70 people were shot over the weekend.

It comes after 87 people were wounded and 17 were killed during gun violence on the 4th July weekend.