Officials will seek to revoke operating licenses of hotel

Location is where shooting left Chicago man dead

A Chicago man was killed and at least four other people were wounded in a shooting early Saturday at a hotel in west suburban Bloomingdale, where at least 100 people were partying on two separate floors with no security on staff, police said.

The incident prompted the village to issue a statement that it has “begun the process of revoking all licenses for the hotel to operate” because of ongoing security concerns that officials say have not been properly addressed.

Officers responded about 2:35 a.m. to a report of shots fired on the fifth floor of the Indian Lakes Hotel, 250 W. Schick Road, Bloomingdale Public Safety Director Frank Giammarese said at an afternoon news conference.

Arriving officers saw several people fleeing the hotel and found multiple gunshot victims on the fifth and sixth floors, Giammarese said.

One victim, James McGill Jr., 27, was taken from the scene by friends to St. Alexius Hospital in Hoffman Estates, where he later died, according to Giammarese.

McGill, of Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood, was pronounced dead at the hospital at 3:16 a.m., according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

Four other shooting victims were taken by ambulance to area hospitals, according to Giammarese. As of Saturday afternoon, one victim was in serious condition, while the others were stable with non-life-threatening gunshot wounds, he said.

He added there could be other victims that police were not aware of since dozens of people were fleeing when officers arrived.

Giammarese said the shooting appeared to stem from a verbal argument between two large groups of people staying on the hotel’s upper floors, and at least two people may have opened fire. In all, the crowd totaled about 100 to 150 people, he said

“There was a verbal argument that led to a physical fight between parties,” Giammarese said. “There was an altercation in the hallway, someone starts shooting, someone shoots back ... it’s an unfortunate situation.”

Footage from police showed a chaotic scene, with officers applying tourniquets to stanch the bleeding on some victims while another officer carried a wounded victim down six flights of stairs, Giammarese said.

Police were still attempting to determine an exact motive for the shooting, but the investigation has been hampered because many witnesses have refused to speak to police, Giammarese said.

“There was not a lot of cooperation,” he said. “People said, ‘We don’t like the police, we’re not going to cooperate with the police.’ It’s unfortunate that people take the approach that they do.”

No one was in custody for the shooting as of Saturday afternoon, and the investigation was ongoing, Giammarese said. The DuPage County Metropolitan Emergency Response and Investigation Team was assisting, and police were in the midst of collecting evidence and executing search warrants, he said.

Giammarese said there have been “ongoing concerns” about large gatherings at the hotel in recent years that have been exacerbated by the ongoing pandemic. At the time of the shooting, there was no security on duty and only one employee appeared to be staffing the hotel, he said.

“There has been a drastic spike in crime there,” he said. “We’ve taken guns off of people. We’ve made arrests.”

Giammarese said he and other village officials have tried to work with the company that runs the hotel, Rosemont-based First Hospitality Group, but nothing has been done.

“We feel that they’ve in some way kind of let down the community,” Giammarese said. “They haven’t held up their part of the bargain as a business in our community.”

The statement released by Mayor Franco Coladipietro on Saturday said village officials “are now in the process of initiating legal proceedings to eliminate this threat to our community.”

A spokeswoman for First Hospitality, meanwhile, said in statement that the company has “worked closely with the Village of Bloomingdale over many years to ensure the safety and security of all guests and associates of the hotel, and will continue to cooperate with this ongoing investigation.”

“Our thoughts are with the individuals directly impacted by this tragedy,” the emailed statement read. Further details would not be disclosed due to the ongoing investigation, according to a spokeswoman.

The Indian Lakes Hotel is located about 30 miles west of downtown Chicago.

A woman who answered the phone at the hotel Saturday morning declined to comment.