SHOOTING, CAR CHASE ENDS IN FRONT OF COURT HOUSE; 1DEAD
A frantic woman parked her bullet- pocked SUV in front of the Cook County Criminal Courthouse on Friday, screaming for help for her wounded boyfriend, who later died, witnesses said.
The woman told police someone in another vehicle opened fire on her car a few blocks south of the Little Village courthouse, near West 31st Street and South Rockwell, and then chased her as she raced away.
“She said she didn’t go to the hospital because she wanted to go somewhere where they would stop shooting at her,” said Robin Ross, who was walking out of the courthouse following a hearing, and overheard the woman talking to police.
The front and rear passenger windows had been shattered by gunfire, and three bullet holes marked a tight cluster on the rear passenger door of the battered black SUV.
The woman bolted from the car, screaming for help, and ran inside the courthouse entrance, Ross said. The shooting victim, a man seated in the back seat of the SUV, was loaded into an ambulance and did not appear to be moving, Ross said. The man was pronounced dead at Mount Sinai Hospital, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
The SUV’s 26- year- old driver and a 28- year- old man were in the vehicle when a man in another vehicle fired multiple shots at them, police said. Police said the man suffered multiple gunshot wounds to the body.
No one was in custody as of about 4 p. m.
Police roped off South California Avenue in front of the courthouse with crime scene tape, and courthouse workers paused to gape at the SUV as they came and went from lunch breaks.
As she sprinted up the courthouse stairs, crying for help, the SUV driver had passed volunteers from Courtside Prayer, a group that greets people entering and exiting the courthouse. Margot Porche, a Courtside Prayer volunteer making her first trip to 26th and California, said shewas shocked by what she had seen.
“She called for help, and they came running,” said Porche. “I guess she came to the right place.”