2 KILLED, 4WOUNDED IN EAST GARFIELD PARK
A burst of daytime gunfire on the city’s West Side claimed two lives Sunday and left frustrated residents shaking their heads.
Two men were killed and four were wounded in the 3500 block of West Van Buren in the East Garfield Park neighborhood, police said. The shooting broke out at 4: 33 p. m. around the corner from Leif Ericson Scholastic Academy.
The area has become a hotspot for drug dealing in recent years, according to residents who say police were called to the area just hours before the bullets flew.
Two men, ages 27 and 23, were shot in the chest and taken to Stroger Hospital, where they were pronounced dead just after 5 p. m., according to police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office. Their identities were not released.
Another 23- year- old man was shot in the back; a 24- year- old man was shot in the chest, back and leg; and a man in his 20swas shot in the chest, according to police. All were taken to Stroger Hospital in critical condition.
A sixth man, 26, suffered a gunshot wound in his right leg and was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in good condition, according to police.
The shooting happened in the Chicago Police Department’s Beat No. 1133, the most violent beat in the city last year. It saw 61 shootings in 2016 — 16 of them fatal — according to records kept by the Chicago Sun- Times. Numbers there had fallen dramatically in the first three months of 2017, with only two nonfatal shootings and not one homicide on the beat. Until Sunday.
Residents of the block, just off the Eisenhower Expressway, say drug traffickers who have taken over the area have so far managed to thwart police called to investigate suspicious activity.
Ald. Jason Ervin ( 28th) said he confronted people on the block just Saturday — non- residents who “just show up over here as if they’re coming to work” to sell marijuana. He complained about a lack of economic opportunity and that police are not being allowed to properly do their job.
The fatal shooting in East Garfield Park happened about four hours after a shooting in the South Side Auburn Gresham neighborhood left one man dead and another wounded. That shooting was in the 8200 block of South Ada at 12: 30 p. m.