Two dead as 37 are shot on Saturday in Chicago

CHICAGO—At least 37 people were shot in Chicago from 11 a.m. Saturday through Sunday morning, three fatally. Thirty-one were shot after midnight with 25 of them shot in five multiple-injury shootings over about 2 { hours. Walk-ins at West Side hospitals complicated efforts to identify victims.

Sixteen of those shot were teenagers. Twelve were 17 or younger.

At 16th Street and Avers, where evidence of the annual block party was scattered on the ground, lime-green T-shirts dotted the groups of people still gathered on sidewalks and in streets after a shooting there around midnight.

One man stood by himself, leaning his back against a chain link fence on the north side of 16th Street, watching police work the large crime scene to his east. He estimated that more than 1,000 people had been there. He talked freely, but did not want to be identified. He's lived in the neighborhood his whole life.

"I know the rules," he said. He'd been on his way out when he heard the gunshots, he said. He commented on the brazenness of shootings he's grown accustomed to.

"If they shoot you they don't even run," he said. "They just walk away, they ain't trying to run."

Calls of shots fired continued to blare on the scanners for the zone, even with all the police in the area of some of the calls. While officers were still on the scene at Avers, two gunmen shot at a group a little more than half a mile away.

Blood thickened on the sidewalk in front of the main door to a large brick apartment building on the north side of Douglas Boulevard in between Millard and Lawndale Avenue and dotted the sidewalk farther north. Dozens of people remained outside, some sitting on the steps in front of Stone Temple Baptist Church.

One young man in a backward Bulls cap sat down on the curb away from everyone else, put his head in his hands, and cried.

Others congregated at Mount Sinai Hospital, leaning against cars and embracing on the sidewalk. Yellow crime scene tape encircled two cars outside the emergency room, a white sedan and a black one that had its front crumpled and windshield cracked.

Mount Sinai's emergency department for a few hours was on bypass and accepting no new emergencies "just because of the sheer amount of shootings," spokesman Dan Regan said.

"We went off of bypass around 8:30 this morning, so we are back to normal operations in terms of accepting patients," Regan said.

"Our folks are unfortunately wellversed in dealing with these kinds of situations," he said.

On Sunday morning, dozens of people gathered outside Stroger Hospital, clustered in small groups in the parking lot.

Only immediate family members of victims were allowed inside, according to police.

Families walked up to the entrance, guarded by police. And if they couldn't enter, they found a spot in the lot to watch and wait.