Tony Goodrich Sr. was fatally shot Tuesday night in the West Pullman neighborhood on the Far South Side when someone opened fire on a porch in the same block.
About 8:15 p.m., the 44-year-old Goodrich was in the 12300 block of South Emerald Drive, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
Someone walked up to him, fired shots and ran away, police said.
Goodrich, who lived on the same block as the shooting, was shot in the neck and was pronounced dead at the scene at 8:32 p.m., authorities said.
His wife, Arkyta Goodrich, said he was standing outside his mother’s home talking with her neighbors when someone began shooting at a group of people on a porch from the corner.
He had left his home nearby about 30 minutes earlier to visit her, and did not get a chance to see his mother before he was shot.
Arkyta Goodrich said she met her husband when she was 6 years old. They grew up across the street from each other and began dating in 1996. In 2002, they were married.
“He was a family man,” she said of his dedication to her and their four children.
When their daughter was having trouble with a customer at the fast-food restaurant where she worked, he went with her to work for four months, she said, to make sure she was safe.
On a GoFundMe page set up to help with funeral expenses, Goodrich’s son wrote: “My father, Mr. Tony Goodrich Sr. was a great man. He loved and cared for any and everybody, literally!!! My father wasn’t a selfish man at all. He touched a lot of people; but I can say that he made me whom I am today.
“Truly, I really hate that I had to lose him to senseless gun violence; my father wasn’t that kind of man. This has effected so many people in the most hurtful way. I’m not even sure how to come to you all for this kind of support but if you knew Tony; you know that he would help anybody.”
Arkyta Goodrich said she hoped to hold a march against violence in the area in his honor after his funeral.
Area South detectives were conducting a homicide investigation.
—Chicago Sun-Times Wire and Homicide Watch Chicago