Usher's 'Nice and Slow' over the wail of ambulances

Outside Mount Sinai Hospital, where six of the West Side gunshot victims were taken overnight – the 11-year-old's grandmother said the family was told there was little chance for the girl.

"They came outside and told us she wasn't going to make it," she said. "Oh, my God."

As the night wore on, about 40 people joined hands outside the hospital and formed a prayer circle.

"Just be with us, God. We need you now," a woman prayed as a black SUV filled with police rolled past. "We need you now like never before."

Dozens of people lingered outside the hospital and in the lobby throughout the night as more gunshot victims were wheeled from ambulances into the emergency room.

Unmarked cars with detectives at the wheel ignored the no-parking signs outside the emergency room.

Every 10 or 15 minutes, sirens from blocks away wailed as ambulances moved toward the hospital up California or Ogden avenues.

A man sat in a car outside, smoking and listening to "Nice and Slow" by Usher, loud enough to hear with the windows up. When he stepped from the car toward the lobby, he first checked a door on the car parked in front of him.

The emergency room at Mount Sinai treated the 11-year-old girl and five others with gunshot wounds between about 9:30 p.m and 3 a.m.

Police expected four of the six to survive.

West Suburban Medical Center treated three people who were shot, though one was transferred to John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County, which took in two others from West Side shootings. Another person walked into Oak Park Hospital with a gunshot wound.

Chicago Tribune reporter Juan Perez Jr. contributed.