Chicago Fire Department salutes Timothy Eiland, firefighter/EMT who died nine months after shooting

CHICAGO (CBS) — The Chicago Fire Department offered a final salute Wednesday for firefighter/EMT Timothy Eiland.

The department offered a customary salute for an active member as firefighters came together to mourn.

Eiland, 33, passed away on Monday, nine months after he was shot during a mass shooting in West Pullman.

An autopsy at the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office determined he died from complications of a gunshot wound to the neck, and his death was ruled a homicide.

Eiland, a husband and father of five, was among six people shot in West Pullman last September, while he was celebrating a family member’s birthday. One other person, 42-year-old Schenia Smith, died in the shooting. Four others were wounded, including Eiland’s 15-year-old niece.

At the time of the shooting, Eiland’s sister, Elishama Wright, said she couldn’t get the shooting out of her mind after seeing her brother and daughter get shot.

“Him being on the ground and just blood gushing out of his face,” she said. “I saw blood all over her, and she said she had been shot, and she fainted, collapsed in my arms.”

Wright said the party was wrapping when the shooting happened. Police said a group of people were outside heading to their vehicles in the 300 block of East Kensington Avenue, near Prairie Avenue, on Sept. 11, 2021, when a person inside a vehicle fired multiple rounds.

“No idea what or why they did what they did,” Wright said.

In addition to Eiland, Smith, and Wright’s daughter, a 38-year-old man and a 31-year-old man both were shot, suffering non-life-threatening injuries.