Vaughn Holeman / Photo from Facebook
BY SUSAN DU
Homicide Watch Chicago
Gunshots rang out Mother's Day afternoon in the West Pullman neighborhood and the children on the block began shouting that 15-year-old Vaughn Holeman had been shot.
Vaughn was outside in the 200 block of West 116th Street when gunman in a passing vehicle opened fire about 3:40 p.m., authorities said.
Tiffany Woodley, a neighborhood mom whose children attended Haley Elementary Academy with Vaughn, said she was sitting on her porch when she saw a white car drive past her house.
When Vaughn fell, Woodley ran to the corner as other children gathered around and held Vaughn in her arms and applied pressure to his wounds to try and stop the bleeding, she said.
Vaughn, of the 400 block of West 115th Street, was shot in the chest and died at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn less than an hour later, authorities said.
"He never said anything," Woodley said. "It was traumatic, it really was. It was trying."
Woodley said she knew Vaughn as an extension of her own children -- the outgoing jokester one in their group. She described Vaughn as a pleasant young man who was well known and well liked in their West Pullman community.
Area South detectives are questioning a juvenile in connection with the murder, police said.
"It's just really sad that this situation was allowed to grow to this level. It's like what is there to do to stop this? What is the answer?" Woodley said.