Credit: Paige Fry
CHICAGO TRIBUNE |SEP 08, 2020
A cellphone’s light flashed on the ground next to a small pool of blood early Sunday. Solo cups and emptied liquor bottles littered the ground where paramedics put a young man on a stretcher and into an ambulance.
Another young man sat on the curb and cried. Others stood around, figuring out what to do after someone unloaded a gun toward the crowd of partygoers.
A 21-year-old man was hit twice in the head, and he later died.
The man, who has not yet been identified, was one of at least 51 shot, nine fatally, in attacks over the Labor Day weekend, according to data kept by the Tribune. Two women also were stabbed to death over the holiday weekend.
The youngest shooting victim, a 4-year-old boy, was injured Friday during the start of the holiday weekend. The boy was shot in the leg and an 18-year-old woman was shot in the lower back when someone in a passing black Dodge Charger fired shots at them while they were standing outside around 11:30 p.m. in the 8600 block of South Honore Street in the Gresham neighborhood, police said. They were both in good condition.
The youngest killed was Dajore Wilson, an 8-year-old girl shot in the back Monday while she was riding in a car and someone in a black Dodge Charger opened fire, hitting her and two adults near 47th Street and Union Avenue in the Canaryville neighborhood.
No arrests have been made in either shooting.
One of those killed was a man shot by police early Saturday in Vittum Park after he allegedly stabbed an officer in the vest, according to Chicago police. His identity hadn’t been released by Tuesday afternoon.
The two women stabbed to death were Alaba Awolola, 52, who was found dead Saturday night in her apartment in the 2900 block of East 70th Street in South Shore and Wicker Park Walgreens employee Olga Calderone, 32, who was killed Sunday morning while working at the store. Murder charges were announced Tuesday against an 18-year-old man in Calderone’s killing.
During last year’s Labor Day weekend, 44 people were shot, nine of them fatally. This weekend was the most violent Labor Day weekend in Chicago since 2016, the most violent year in decades, when 63 people were shot, 13 of them fatally, according to Tribune data. So far this year, more than 2,850 people have been shot in Chicago, with about 525 people killed in homicides, according to Tribune data.
In one of the most recent killings, a shootout occurred around 6:30 p.m. Monday in the Stony Island Park neighborhood, resulting in a 21-year-old man’s death and three other injuries after one man, who has a concealed carry license, returned fire, police said.
Two men were inside a red Nissan Altima driving north in the 8400 block of South Cregier Avenue when two people on foot fired shots at them, police said.
The 21-year-old man in the car was shot in the neck and later died at the University of Chicago Medical Center, police said. A 30-year-old man was shot in the right thigh and opened fire, hitting two 18-year-old men — one in the thigh and one in the forearm. The three men were expected to survive their injures, and the two young men are being questioned by police. The man had not been identified by Tuesday afternoon.
At the ABLA Homes early Sunday, people remarked how they were lucky it was only a 21-year-old man who was shot given the 15 shell casings and hundreds of people who had gathered for an outdoor party. The man had not been identified by Tuesday afternoon.
Police officers pulled crime scene tape across the 1300 block of West Hastings Street in the University Village/Little Italy neighborhood on the West Side. One man yelled at another, who sprinted off.
An officer followed one vehicle out, afraid their anger would boil over into another shooting.
After detectives arrived at the scene and rain started to fall, one older resident came out of her home and shook her head, looking out past the crime scene tape. She pointed out different locations on the one-way street surrounded by large parking lots and row houses.
“A boy was killed there. A boy was killed there,” she said, moving her finger around. “Two were shot over there.”
Another woman asked detectives to check if her phone was still on the ground before it started to rain. She moved out of Illinois from the South Side a couple of years prior because of the violence. Her daughter told her she shouldn’t have come to visit for the holiday weekend. She ended up running from bullets and dropping her phone.
“This is why I left Chicago,” she said to herself.
Over the weekend, most people who were injured were shot in South Side police districts. The South Chicago, Englewood, Deering and Gresham districts had more than half of the weekend’s gunshot victims.
One homicide occurred about 9:10 p.m. Sunday in the Brighton Park neighborhood on the Southwest Side, police said. Steven Garcia, 38, of the 4000 block of South Francisco Avenue, was outside a gas station at the corner of Archer Avenue and 39th Place when two men approached him and they began fighting.
Garcia tried to run away, but a third man approached on foot and fired one shot at him, hitting him in the upper back, police said. He was taken to St. Anthony Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Detectives on Sunday night scanned the BP gas station, which was completely blocked off by crime scene tape. Only one bloody piece of clothing near one of the lot’s entrances was left behind to show someone had been killed. Detectives also walked across busy Archer Avenue and canvassed a small shopping center, then walked down nearby Rockwell Street.
Around 1:15 a.m. Monday, a 56-year-old man shot two men, 37 and 30, in the 6300 block of South Ashland Avenue in the Englewood neighborhood during a fight outside after he said one of the men lifted up their shirt to display a handgun, police said.
The younger man was grazed in the arm by a bullet and left the scene after refusing medical attention, and the 37-year-old man was shot in the arm and torso and taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center in critical condition, police said.
The 56-year-old man had a valid firearm owner’s identification card, but it was unknown if he had a concealed carry license, police said. He was taken into custody after investigation.
The West Side’s Harrison District, notorious for high rates of violence, only had three people shot, none fatally, but the neighboring Near West District had a 15-year-old boy and 16-year-old girl wounded and two men killed in separate shootings.