By JON SEIDEL, JACOB WITTICH, SAM CHARLES and JORDAN OWEN
Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Police investigate the scene where two men were killed and four men were shot in the at 4:33 p.m. Sunday in the 3500 block of West Van Buren in the East Garfield Park neighborhood on the West Side. | Brian Jackson/For the Sun-Times
Deonta Turner and Lemont Davis were killed, and four other men were wounded, in a shooting Sunday afternoon in a part of the East Garfield Park neighborhood that frustrated residents call a “hotspot” for drug activity.
About 4:33 p.m., the men were standing in a group in the 3500 block of West Van Buren when a white, four-door car pulled up and multiple people got out and started shooting, according to Chicago Police. The vehicle may have been a Chevrolet Impala.
Two of the men, the 23-year-old Turner and 27-year-old Davis, were shot in the chest, and were taken to Stroger Hospital, where they were pronounced dead just after 5 p.m., according to police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
Autopsies Monday found Turner, of the Uptown neighborhood, died of a gunshot wound to the back; and Davis, of west suburban Oak Park, died of multiple gunshot wounds. Their deaths were ruled homicides.
An 18-year-old man was shot in the chest; a 23-year-old man was shot in the back; and a 24-year-old man was shot in the chest, back and leg, police said. All were taken in critical condition to Stroger Hospital.
A sixth man, 26, suffered a gunshot wound to the right leg and was taken in good condition to Mount Sinai Hospital, police said.
Residents say the block, just off the Eisenhower Expressway, has become a hotspot for drug trafficking. Dealers have had success hiding drugs in the area whenever cops are called, residents said.
A bullet hole in a window in the 3500 block of West Van Buren on Sunday. | Brian Jackson/For the Sun-Times
A group of about 30 people was seen on the block in the hours before the shooting, with some running up and down the street. The residents said it looked like an argument had broken out.
The shooting happened in the Chicago Police Department’s Beat 1133, the most violent in the city last year.
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In 2016, the police beat saw 61 shootings, 16 of which were fatal, according to Chicago Sun-Times records. Three police officers were shot and three people were shot by police last year in the beat.
Violence in Beat No. 1133 had fallen dramatically during the first three months of 2017, with only two nonfatal shootings and no homicides, according to Sun-Times records. Those numbers have now more than doubled.