Elite GI held in 'bowling' slays
6 shot at Ill. bar called Shooters
An Army special-forces sergeant was charged Sunday with shooting six people at an Illinois bowling-alley bar named Shooters, killing three and blasting a teenage boy in the face, cops said.
Duke Webb, 37, of Florida, was charged with three counts of murder and three counts of firstdegree attempted murder for Saturday night’s bloodbath in Rockford, according to police and prosecutors.
“We believe this was a completely random act and there is no prior meeting or any kind of relationship between the suspect and any of the victims in this case,” Rockford Police Chief Dan O’Shea said.
The Army confirmed to The Post that Webb is an assistant operations and intelligence sergeant in the 3rd Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) at Camp Bull Simons of Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.
He joined the Army in 2008 and was on leave when the shooting occurred, the Army said, without explaining why. It also is unclear why Webb was in Illinois.
“We are shocked and saddened to learn about this tragic event, and our thoughts and prayers are with the families of those killed and wounded,” Webb’s commander, Col. John W. Sannes, said as the Army vowed “full assistance” in the investigation.
Webb was busted minutes after police arrived at the scene of the 7 p.m. bloodbath outside Shooters Bar, the only part of the Don Carter Lanes bowling-alley complex open during coronavirus restrictions.
The suspect tried to hide his weapons, two handguns recovered at the scene, and was arrested without officers having to open fire, according to O’Shea.
“I am very confident the officers that were on the scene in the building were able to stop further violence,” O’Shea said.
The three dead, whose names have not been released, were all men, ages 65, 69 and 73.
The boy, 14, shot in the face was miraculously in stable condition after being airlifted to a hospital in Madison, Wis., O’Shea said at a news conference Sunday morning.
A 16-year-old girl was shot in the shoulder and discharged from a hospital after treatment, and a 62-year-old man was still in critical condition after surgery for gunshot wounds, according to the chief.
Both of the injured teenagers had been at the bar to pick up takeout food, O’Shea said.
“Most of the incident was captured on surveillance video from inside the business,” he said. “The investigators have the surveillance videos, and they’ll go through those.”
Webb is being held in the Winnebago County Jail without bond and is scheduled to make his first court appearance Monday afternoon, according to the Rockford Register Star.
The mass shooting capped the deadliest year in Rockford since the city began keeping crime stats in 1965, with 35 homicides in 2020, the paper reported.