A Chicago park shooting Thursday night left 13 people severely wounded, including a 3-year-old boy in critical condition, authorities said, adding that all of them were shot at a basketball court, ABC News reported Friday.

A Chicago park shooting, which happened Thursday night around 10:15 p.m. local time at a Chicago's South Side basketball court near Cornell Square Park, left 13 people injured, including a 3-year-old boy in critical condition.

Officials said the 12 victims were rushed to various hospitals while another victim walked into a nearby hospital after obtaining gunshot injuries.

Police Spokesman Ron Gaines said that the 3-year-old boy was transported to Mount Sinai Hospital in critical condition due to a gunshot wound he obtained from a bullet that passed through his ear and exited out near his mouth.

According to ABC News station WLS-TV, the boy was identified as Deonta Howard, and is now in stable condition after hours of surgery, a family representative told WLS, adding that Deonta is now expected to live.

Meanwhile, four other victims are reportedly in serious condition while the remaining are in good or stable condition.

Gaines said that the Chicago park shooting victims range from 3 to 41 including two teenagers, noting that three of the 12 are women.

"It happened so fast," a witness named Jack said. "I was over at the side of the park and I heard the shots. I came over here and there was a lot of people down."

Reports stated that police believe that the motive behind the Chicago park shooting was gang-related although no details on potential suspects have been released as of late.

ABC News reported that the shooting comes after an outburst of violence Labor Day weekend three weeks earlier, which reportedly ended with eight dead and 20 people injured. The said incident led the city's Police Department to step up its crime-fighting efforts, paying overtime to secure additional patrols on specific neighborhoods, including the Back of the Yards, where Thursday's Chicagopark shooting happened.

In February, President Obama addressed the rising violence in his hometown, saying that absent fathers and broken marriages are just two of the contributing factors that lead to increased incidence of poverty, violence, and crime in the said city. Obama added that the solution to the problem is strengthening parental role models.

"There's no more important ingredient for success, nothing that would be more important for us reducing violence than strong, stable families, which means we should do more to promote marriage and encourage fatherhood," Obama said.