A drive-by mass shooting killed four people and wounded 14 more late Wednesday night in River North, Chicago police said, as gunmen appeared to target a group of people on the street outside an album release party for a local drill rapper.
During a noon media briefing, Mayor Brandon Johnson and Police Superintendent Larry Snelling decried the mass shooting while calling it an isolated incident and asking citizens to send in information to investigators.
Johnson said officials “will not rest” until the shooters are held accountable.
“Shootings like these are a tragic reminder of how far we still have to go as a city,” Johnson said, calling the incident a cowardly “act of hate.”
Snelling — who said the business that held the party has been temporarily closed — described a chaotic scene as officers arrived and began trying to help the injured.
“It is safe to say this venue was targeted,” Snelling said, who added one of the weapons involved appeared to be a rifle. Investigators were pulling surveillance video from the around the area, he said.
Patrons were hit outside the Artis Restaurant and Lounge, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office, where local rapper Mello Buckzz had planned the party, according to social media.
The shooting took place outside the lounge at around 11 p.m. Wednesday, when a large group of people were on the 300 block of West Chicago Avenue.
On Thursday morning, the medical examiner’s office released the identities of two of the dead: Leon Andrew Henry, 25, and Devonte Terrell Williamson, 23.
Police said a dark vehicle drove past, fired into the crowd and drove away. The car circled the block and appeared to target a line of people waiting to get into a building, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation.
Hours after the shooting, it wasn’t yet clear if the album’s release specifically was targeted. For the last 15 years, Chicago’s drill rap scene has often led to fatal gun violence as rival artists trade insults and threats through their lyrics and social media taunts.
In a post to Instagram Thursday, Mello Buckzz said one of the four people killed was her significant other.
On her Facebook page — followed by 89,000 people — Mello Buckzz appears to claim affiliation with “NLMB,” a gang faction with territory in South Shore that’s been linked to several murders in recent years. Among the most high-profile NLMB associates is Chicago drill rapper G Herbo, who collaborated with Mello Buckzz in a song released in 2024.
Members and associates of “NLMB” — an acronym for “No Limit Muskegon Boyz” and “Never Leave My Brothers” — were previously linked to another quadruple murder in South Shore in 2017 and another brazen daytime murder in a South Loop barbershop in 2021.
Henry, a resident of the Ashburn neighborhood on the city’s far Southwest Side, was allegedly part of the Black P. Stones and NLMB street gangs, per court records from 2018 and 2019.
The crime scene had been cleared from outside the club, located at 311 W. Chicago Ave. by Thursday morning as commuters made their way past the Chicago Brown and Purple Line stop.
Social media was filling up with accounts of people who said they had been at the party, including a woman who apparently was a DJ for the event.
Using the name “sukigeez” on Instagram, the woman said she had just left the building when the shooting broke out.
“My brother & I decided to go across the street to get some food & heard the gun shots and saw people running away from where I was just playing music,” the message said. “Honestly it was a great night. No drama. A celebration. I was really happy for Mello.”
The shooting rattled the surrounding neighborhood.
Lizzie Zimmermann, a 28-year-old marketing consultant, was getting ready for bed in her 17th-floor apartment when she heard the distinct cracking of gunshots.
“It sounded like someone unloading a magazine. It was just a rapid, like, ‘pop, pop, pop, pop, pop,’” Zimmermann said. “It was silent for maybe 15, 30 seconds, and then I just heard a million sirens.”
When she looked out her window, about two blocks east of Artis Lounge, the entire street was flashing with police lights. She walked passed the scene Thursday morning and saw trails of blood on the sidewalk.
“I was definitely worried. It was scary,” Zimmermann said. “It wasn’t even that late at night. I mean, anybody could still be on the street at 11 o’clock.”
Two women, whose ages weren’t immediately available, were shot in the chest and pronounced dead at Northwestern Hospital, police said. Two men, ages 24 and 25, were shot in the chest and head respectively and pronounced dead at Stroger Hospital, police said.
The rest of the victims, who ranged in age from 21 to 32, were in various conditions at Stroger Hospital, Northwestern Hospital, Mt. Sinai Hospital and Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, police said. At least two were believed to be in critical condition.
No one was in custody as of Thursday around 5 a.m, police said. Area 3 detectives are investigating.
The 42nd Ward is currently subject to a late-hour liquor license moratorium, according to the area’s alderman, Brendan Reilly, and Artis had applied for an incidental liquor license along with a food license.
That liquor license hadn’t been approved yet, he said, so the restaurant had been operating under a BYOB policy.
“The city needs to take a very hard look at our BYOB policy and consider some significant changes to make those much, much harder to use,” he said.
Reilly added that Artis had been given a draft plan of operation as it was working toward a liquor license, which prohibited the use of promoters that publicized parties like the one held Wednesday night, he said.
Reilly said he and CPD officials had requested a summary closure for Artis, and said he would ask the liquor commissioner to reject the restaurant’s liquor license and ensure that the business “never opens again.”
The mass shooting is the worst in the downtown area since 2022, when 11 people were shot outside a McDonald’s at Chicago and State Street. Two were killed.
Artis Lounge where the party was held was licensed to open in February 2025, according to records from the city’s Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection.
In a statement posted to social media, club management said they were “deeply” shaken by the shooting and offered condolences to the victims and their families. The bar, which opened April 10, bills itself as a safe space for Black, Brown and queer people to “gather, be celebrated and feel at home in River North.”
“What happened last night disrupted it in the most painful way,” the statement read.
Another fatal shooting occurred at the same address in November 2022, when the property housed a nightclub, records show.
That shooting left one man dead and three other people wounded. County court records show a man was charged with illegal gun possession in connection with the shooting, but no one was ever charged with murder.
Tribune reporters William Tong and Kate Armanini contributed to this report.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
