Spray Attack at Chicago Anniversary Party Hurts 23

Aug. 17--Almost two dozen people -- many of them children -- suffered skin irritation after someone sprayed a mace-like substance into a yard where a family gathered for an anniversary party, according to authorities.

The wife and her husband sat in the front yard while ambulances staged up the block, some of them stacked with three or four children, all of whom were treated for their wounds and released from hospitals overnight.

The pair had been married 50 years and were celebrating with a family party at a blue, two-story frame home in the city's Gage Park neighborhood, on Rockwell Street just north of 51st Street.

Solid white lights allowing someone to work next to an ambulance lit the front of the home, where some weary children remained just before midnight. Most wore dresses or shirts and ties.

A relative of the family at the scene said they weren't sure why someone would spray the party.

A Chicago Fire Department spokesman said the 23 people injured suffered mild skin irritation but no respiratory stress and would likely be treated and released from the hospitals they were taken: Little Company of Mary Hospital, Holy Cross Hospital, Mount Sinai Hospital, Saint Anthony Hospital and John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County.

pnickeas@tribune.com -- Twitter: @PeterNickeas

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