By JORDAN OWEN
Chicago Sun-Times Wire
When Jesse Woods III was found shot to death late Tuesday in the Calumet Heights neighborhood on the South Side, it marked the city’s 200th homicide of 2017.
Police responded to a call of shots fired about 10:15 p.m. and discovered the 31-year-old Woods lying on the sidewalk in the 9200 block of South Chappel, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
He had been shot in the back and the head, and was pronounced dead at the scene at 10:30 p.m., authorities said. He lived in the Gresham neighborhood.
The circumstances of the shooting were not known as Area South detectives investigate, police said.
Woods’ death was at least the 200th homicide in the city this year, according to Chicago Sun-Times records. In 2016, the city reached 200 homicides two days earlier, on May 7. Chicago saw a total of 781 homicides in 2016, the most in two decades.
In 2015, the city reached 200 homicides on June 18. There were a total of 482 homicides that year.
The homicide total does not include two people fatally shot by Chicago Police officers, nor nine other homicide victims who died in 2017 of injuries suffered in previous years.
No one was in custody for Woods’ shooting as of Thursday morning.