A burst of gang violence in the Southwest Side Brighton Park neighborhood on Sunday left three people dead, including a brother and sister visiting a memorial for a slain friend, and capped a week that saw seven people killed in homicides across the city as Chicago neared the 200 homicide mark.
While the 200th homicide was not recorded until Monday, Sunday’s outbreak of gun violence — perpetrated by gang members using assault rifles, according to Chicago Police — left three dead and eight wounded in two separate incidents on the same block.
Michael A. Williams and his sister Adriana Williams had stopped at a memorial service for a friend killed hours earlier. As the gatherers mourned, two gunmen, opened fire on the crowd, leaving the siblings dead and eight other people wounded about 5:15 p.m. Sunday at Rockwell Street and 46th Place, according to police.
Michael Williams, 24; and Adriana Williams, 27, were both shot multiple times, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office. Michael was pronounced dead at the scene, while Adriana was taken to Stroger Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 5:57 p.m. Read more
Chicago Police on Monday said the number of shootings in Chicago declined for the second month in a row in April, but that didn’t stop another 10 people from dying in violence in the final week of the month.
Overall, 45 people were fatally shot in Chicago in April, a month in which 313 people were injured in 247 separate shooting incidents, according to police statistics released Monday, and maintained by the Chicago Sun-Times.
Shootings are down almost 13 percent from the same time last year, according to police. So far, there have been about 9 percent fewer shooting victims compared to 2016. Police said the decline continued from March, when 209 people were shot, 35 of them fatally.
Fifteen of the city’s 22 police districts saw a reduction or remained flat in shootings compared to this time last year, police said.At least 10 people were killed in violence last week in Chicago.
Homicides are a different story. While 2016 saw the most shootings in the city in over 20 years, 2017 is keeping pace. As of the end of April, there have been at least 190 homicides in the city, according to Sun-Times records. That is actually four more homicides than the 186 that were reported through the end of April 2016. Read more
By JEFFMAYES
Homicide Watch Chicago
Last year saw the most homicides in the city in more than two decades, and this year is on pace to equal or beat that number. It is not even the end of April and there have been more than 1,000 shootings in the city of Chicago this year, and more than 180 have been homicide victims.
At least 14 people were killed in Chicago last week, and that brought the total number of homicides to 183 as of April 25. In 2016, the city recorded its 183rd homicide on April 26.
On the same day, two people were shot, bringing the city’s gun violence toll to 1,000 victims this year, according to Chicago Sun-Times data. The milestone came on the 115th day of 2017, meaning the city is averaging nearly nine people shot per day. The bloodiest day was New Year’s Day, when 27 people were shot.
Last week’s homicide victims ranged in age from 18 to 71, and died all across the city, though the vast majority of the year’s crimes and hiomicides have occurred on the South and West sides.
The latest victim was a man killed in a shooting Sunday evening in the Humboldt Park neighborhood on the West Side. Isaiah Erasmo Sanchez, 19, was a passenger in a vehicle about 7:15 p.m. in the 800 block of North Sacramento when someone fired shots from another vehicle, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office. Sanchez suffered a gunshot wound to the chest and was taken to Saints Mary and Elizabeth Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 8:33 p.m. He lived in the Belmont Cragin neighborhood on the Northwest Side. Read more
By JEFFMAYES
Homicide-Watch Chicago
Six more people were homicide victims in Chicago last week, including a Cook County judge shot to death in front of his South Side home, as the city’s epidemic of violence kept pace with with 2016, a year which saw the most murders in two decades.
On April 19, Chicago recorded its 171st homicide of the year, according to records kept by the Chicago Sun-Times. In 2016, the 171st homicide of the year was also recorded on April 19. However, the ciuty’s 172nd and 173rd homicides were also reported on April 19, so as of Friday morning, this year is running two homicides behind last year, which ended with more than 780.
The violence actually slowed down somewhat last week, as four of the six fatal shootings were reported on Monday, April 17, and just two others happened the rest of the week.
The most shocking crime of the week involved the judge, who was shot to death in an incident that also left a woman wounded early Monday in the West Chesterfield neighborhood on the South Side.
Officers responded at 4:51 a.m. to a call of shots fired in the 9400 block of South Forest and found the 66-year-old man and 52-year-old woman suffering from gunshot wounds, according to police. The man was identified as Cook County Associate Judge Raymond Myles, according to the medical examiner’s office. Read more
By JEFFMAYES
Homicide Watch Chicago
The victims ranged in age from a 15-year-old boy shot death in Hermosa to a 75-year-old, found with fatal stab wounds after a fire in his home in Portage Park. It was another bloody week in Chicago, where at least 14 people died from violence, including a man shot to death by his own father.
The death toll for the year has reached at least 163 people killed in homicides through April 10. That is just one less that April 10 of 2016, when the city recorded its 164th homicide en route to a toal of nearly 800, the most in at least 20 years.
The week’s youngest victim was 15-year-old Diego Villada, who died Monday morning, two days after he was shot on the Northwest Side. The boy was in an alley about 12:35 p.m. April 1 in the 2100 block of North Tripp when he was confronted by two males, one of whom fired multiple shots, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office. Villada, who lives in the same neighborhood, suffered a gunshot wound to the head and was taken to Illinois Masonic Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 9:45 a.m. Monday, authorities said.
Two other teenage boys were also killed last week. A 16-year-old was killed and a 19-year-old man wounded in a shooting Wednesday afternoon in the North Lawndale neighborhood on the West Side. They were walking out of a store in the 1300 block of South Lawndale at 1:06 p.m. when they heard shots, according to police. Kahari Stovall, the 16-year-old, was shot in the lower back and abdomen; and the man was shot in the knee, police said. Both were taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where Stovall was pronounced dead at 3:40 p.m., according to police and the medical examiner’s office. He lived in the South Shore neighborhood. The man was listed in good condition, police said. Read more
By JEFFMAYES
Homicide Watch Chicago
A week that started out with about four full days without a homicide suddenly exploded into a bloodbath when four shootings left eight people dead in a matter of 24 hours in the South Shore neighborhood, and by the time it ended, 18 lives were lost to violence in Chicago last week.
After nearly four days of from early Sunday morning until Wednesday night, a man shot to death in the South Shore neighborhood. Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office said 37-year-old Jerry Jacobs was walking on the sidewalk at 11:13 p.m. March 29 in the 7900 block of South Phillips when four males got out of a dark-colored vehicle and shot at him.
Jacobs, who lived in the same neighborhood, suffered a gunshot wound to the right side of his body and took himself to South Shore Hospital. He was later transferred to Stroger Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 3:40 a.m. Thursday, March 31.
And that was just the start, according to Cook County prosecutors, who claim that Jacobs’ son, 19-year-old Maurice Harris, fatally shot four people at the Nadia Fish and Chicken restaurant at 75th and Coles in retaliation for his father’s death. Charged on Wednesday with four counts of murder, Harris was ordered held without bond. Read more
By JEFFMAYES
Homicide Watch Chicago
Despite a dramatic reduction in homicides in Chicago so far in March, another 5 people died from violence in the city last week.
As of March 30, there had been 28 homicides in March, and while that may seem high, it follows a February in which at least 48 people were slain, and a January that saw 53 homicides, according to Chicago SUn-Times records.
There have been at least 129 homicides this year, and while the city was keeping pace with last year’s numbers, it has now fallen behind 2016, during which 149 people had been slain in the same time period.
Last week’s victim included a 14-year-old boy, shot to death Saturday afternoon in Austin on the West Side; and a 22-year-old man known as an outstanding athlete in the Far South Side Rosemoor neighborhood, who died Wednesday, five days after being shot in the neighborhood where he live..
The teen, Laquan Allen, was on the sidewalk in the 4900 block of West Hubbard just after 3 p.m. when someone fired shots from a passing vehicle, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office. The boy suffered a gunshot wound to the buttocks and was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 3:34 p.m., according to authorities. Read more
A week that started out with three people being found with fatal gunshot wounds in a car parked on the South Side ended with only three more fatal shootings. And the death of a man who had been shot several months earlier brought the week’s death toll from Chicago violence to seven.
The three men were found Monday morning in a car parked illegally in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood. The bodies were found at 7:35 a.m. in an alley in the 8600 block of South Throop, according to Chicago Police. However, police said it was not known how long the bodies had been there.
Anderson and Watson lived in the Southwest Side Ashburn neighborhood, whiled Hamilton lived in south suburban Blue Island. Police said Hamilton had been reported missing the previous evening, and the bodies were found in his vehicle. Read more
By JEFFMAYES
Chicago Sun-Times Wire
Just one week after no fatal shootings were reported in Chicago for the first time in over four years, the city saw another outbreak of violence that left at least 15 people killed, including a pair of separate incidents in which two men died. Another man died after his girlfriends poured bleach into his face during a domestic argument.
Two men were killed and one wounded in an Edgewater neighborhood shooting early Sunday on the North Side. Quentin Payton, 28, and a 32-year-old man were standing outside at 12:34 a.m. on the sidewalk in the 6300 block of North Broadway when someone in a dark-colored SUV opened fire, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
Payton was shot in the head and was taken to Saint Francis Hospital in Evanston, where he was pronounced dead, police said. The older man suffered a gunshot wound to the left leg and was also taken to Saint Francis, where his condition was stabilized.
More than 30 minutes later, 22-year-old Chaz Johnson showed up at Community First Medical Center suffering from a gunshot wound to the left side of his torso, police said. He had been sitting in the back seat of a vehicle when he was shot and investigators eventually determined he was a third victim from the Edgewater incident. Johnson was later transferred in critical condition to Illinois Masonic Medical Center, where he died at 8:43 a.m., authorities said.
In the week’s other mass shooting, four men were struck early Friday at a Washington Park neighborhood gas station on the South Side, leaving two dead, according to police. Responding officers found the victims just before 2 a.m. in the foyer of the GoLo station in the 100 block of East 51st Street. Witnesses said a gray four-door Chevrolet pulled up and opened fire on the men before taking off north on Indiana Avenue. Read more
There was likely not a fatal shooting in Chicago last week, something that had not happened in Chicago in more than four years.
It has been since at least 2012 since there was a week without a fatal shooting, according to Homicide Watch Chicago records which go back to the start of 2013. The longest stretch without a fatal shooting in that time was four days, which happened in December 2016.
But despite the lull in fatalities, the city is still ahead of 2016 as far as shootings go, though 2016 had recorded more homicides, 111, as compared to this year, which had seen 102 through Sunday.
Two people did die from violence in the city last week, but both were injured before the week started.
Chicago Police and state child welfare authorities are investigating the death of a 4-month-old Janylah Mack, who died Thursday from injuries suffered in utero when her father allegedly beat her pregnant mother and killed her 3-year-old brother last year. Janylah was pronounced dead at 10:09 a.m. Thursday, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office. An autopsy Friday found the baby, who lived in the West Side Humboldt Park neighborhood, died from complications of injuries her mother suffered in an assault while pregnant with her. Read more
What is Homicide Watch Chicago?
Homicide Watch Chicago is dedicated to the proposition that murder is never a run-of-the-mill story. Attention must be paid to each one, not merely a select and particularly tragic few. We understand the reality of the public’s demand for news - that some stories get more attention than others. But all murders represent a degree of human suffering - direct and indirect - that cannot be ignored. Read more…
