3 stabbed at Navy Pier after fireworks, 14 others trampled, police say
Three people were stabbed and more than a dozen people injured in a subsequent stampede at Navy Pier after the Fourth of July fireworks display.
An altercation broke out at the pier about 10 p.m., and the trio was stabbed, Chicago Police Sgt. Rocco Alioto said at a news conference.
Someone in the crowd then yelled “gun,” and a stampede followed, Alioto said. Fourteen people were trampled and taken to hospitals with injuries that were not lifethreatening.
There was initially a report of a person shot that turned out false, Alioto said. In the stampede, one man punctured his leg after running into an overturned table, he said.
The stabbing happened just outside the pier’s “secure zone,” Alioto said, although it was unclear what that meant. The circumstances that led to the stabbing were unclear because the stabbing victims were not cooperating with investigators, he said.
Thousands of people streamed through downtown afterward. The streets around the pier were littered with sandals, hats and bags.
A 45-year-old woman was with two cousins at the pier when she heard what sounded like a gunshot and people started running, she said. She lost her cousins but reunited with them outside at the south end of the pier, she said.
“Just chaos. Chaos. That’s all it was,” the woman said.
Another woman was with her young daughter and friend, watching the fireworks from a bench outside the pier, when people started running over each other, she said.
1 killed, 3 wounded in Humboldt Park shooting
Earlier Thursday, one man was killed and three other people were wounded Thursday morning in a Humboldt Park shooting as police littered the city with extra patrols to start the historically violent Fourth of July weekend.
That West Side shooting was the largest in a spurt of Independence Day attacks that left two people killed and 10 others wounded by gunfire by late Thursday evening.
The group was standing outside about 11:30 a.m. near Iowa Street and Homan Avenue when a car drove by and someone inside started shooting, according to police.
A 32-year-old man was killed, according to police and fire department officials. The Cook County medical examiner’s office had not released the man’s identity.
CPD spokesman Anthony Guglielmi tweeted that officers tried to chase a white sedan that fled the scene of the shooting but lost sight of the car. Police personnel tracked the car on city cameras and found it — but no suspects — by early afternoon, Supt. Eddie Johnson told reporters a few hours later.
One officer guarding the scene said: “Somebody’s Monday meeting isn’t going to go well” — a thinly veiled reference to Johnson’s weekly meeting with Mayor Lori Lightfoot.
Johnson, speaking at 4 p.m. near Navy Pier, said police recovered 35 weapons and made eight arrests between 6 p.m. Wednesday and mid-afternoon Thursday.
At the time Johnson spoke, seven people had been shot — two fatally — in that time span. Asked to compare that total with previous years’ Independence Day violence, Johnson said he wouldn’t comment because he didn’t want to “jinx” the rest of the weekend.
A year ago, seven people were wounded in Chicago gun violence on the Fourth of July.
David Struett is a CST Wire Reporter. Nader Issa is a Sun-Times Staff Reporter. Contributing: Luke Wilusz, Sam Charles