An 18-year-old Chicago college student was shot in the cheek with a pellet gun Monday afternoon as he sat in a car parked near Niles North High School.
Joel Galutan, a student at Wright Junior College, was in good condition Monday at Rush North Shore Medical Center in Skokie, according to police and a nursing supervisor. Galutan’s injury was not serious, the supervisor said.
The shooting occurred at about 2:45 p.m.-15 minutes before classes let out-when five to seven young people pulled up in a car near the school, according to Principal Donald Childs.
Shortly after, a second group of people approached the vehicle on foot. One of them pointed what turned out to be a pellet gun at one of the people in the car and fired, Childs said. Galutan was shot once in the cheek.
None of the youths involved attended Niles North, 9800 Lawler Ave., Skokie, police said.
Skokie police said in a statement that “the incident may have been precipitated by a dispute which occurred in Chicago several weeks ago.”
Investigators have a positive identification of one offender and were looking for him and at least one other person, said Skokie Police Officer Jim Chwalisz.
“We do have students who we know are members of gangs,” Childs said, but added that school officials have been successful in keeping gang activity out of the school. “There has never been an incident of this nature here before,” he said.
However, he added that the school has had a recurring problem of non-students-apparently acquaintances of Niles students who have transferred from Chicago schools-hanging out in the parking lot and nearby.
Police would not say whether the shooting was gang-related, but it followed by about a week the first-ever gang shooting in nearby Niles.
In that incident, two men were wounded by bullets and a third was beaten with a baseball bat Nov. 7 at Mark Twain School, 9401 N. Hamlin Ave., apparently following an argument in the parking lot.
In April, two young men were stabbed on Dee Road near unincorporated Park Ridge, police said. And in the most violent gang incident, also taking place on Dee Road, 17-year-old John Anzelmo was shot to death in March 1992.
Wednesday evening, the Maine Township Task Force Against Gangs is scheduled to meet in the township hall, 1700 Ballard Rd.
