Belmont Area detectives are investigating possible links between a pair of shootings that wreaked havoc up and down the Near West Side over a few hours Tuesday afternoon, where the same group of gunmen in a pair of incidents may have shot at a total of six people in three cars, leaving three of the victims dead.
In the second shooting, the aggressors allegedly circled the block and came back to fire again as two of their targets were forced to steer and work the vehicle pedals of a vehicle around a third man who was fatally wounded in the driver’s seat, per a police report obtained by the Tribune. Detectives have linked several different street gangs to the investigation, sources said.
Around 1:20 p.m., Near West (12th) District police found three people shot, one inside a flaming SUV, in the parking lot of a White Castle at the intersection of Roosevelt and Western Avenue. The alleged aggressors are thought to be part of the same street gang, a source said.
According to a police report, surveillance camera footage captured three unknown shooters armed with both handguns and a rifle as they drove up to the parking lot in a gray Dodge Durango when they got out and shot three men, ages 35, 44 and 48, who were inside two vehicles.
The 35-year-old victim was shot with his foot on the gas pedal of a parked Lincoln SUV, causing the vehicle to catch fire, sources said. The 44-year-old victim appeared running up Western on surveillance footage and was later brought by a Good Samaritan for treatment at Stroger Hospital, per a police report. Police said Tuesday that man was in good condition, but that the third man, age 48, had also been killed.
The Cook County medical examiner’s office had not yet publicly identified the two dead men from the White Castle shooting, but a source with knowledge of the situation said two of the three shooting victims lived in a section of the West Side controlled by the Cali Boys street gang. Citywide organized crime investigators had flagged two of the men for gang activity, per a source with knowledge of the situation.
A different source familiar with the investigation said police believe the White Castle shooters may have later fired on a second carload of three men in the 700 block of North Wolcott Avenue around 4:45 p.m. Tuesday. According to a police report obtained by the Tribune, the second group of targets told police they had been across the street from the White Castle earlier on Tuesday.
When police responded to that shots-fired call in West Town, they found a 32-year-old man shot in the back in the driver’s seat of a Buick Enclave. According to a police report obtained by the Tribune, two other men who were in the car said the driver had picked them up from a barbershop at Roosevelt and Western and were passing the intersection of Adams Street and Leavitt Avenue when the black Buick rolled up to the car and its occupants started firing at them.
The driver was incapacitated due to his wound, the report stated — so one of his companions took the steering wheel of the Enclave while the second operated the gas and brake pedals and navigated the car to the 1900 block of W. Huron St., nearly a mile and a half away. The same black Buick reappeared then and fired again, disabling their car, before driving away to the south, the report stated.
The wounded man was taken to Stroger Hospital, where he was pronounced dead around 5:15 p.m., according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office. His identity wasn’t yet public as of Wednesday afternoon.
That man has been listed in police records as an affiliate of a few different West Side gangs, but most of his 29 past arrests took place in parts of the West Side controlled by the Black Souls street gang, per sources with knowledge of the situation. Harrison Area detectives had flagged the man for notifications about new arrests, sources said.
As of Wednesday afternoon, no one was in custody for either shooting, police department representatives said.
