Multiple gunmen opened fire inside a house party on Chicago’s South Side this weekend, wounding 13 people and causing chaos as partygoers fleeing for safety encountered more shooting outside on the street.
According to Patrol Chief Fred Waller, two “persons of interest” were being questioned. One of the shooters was armed with a revolver and the other suffered a gunshot wound at the party held in the Englewood neighborhood. The party was a memorial for someone who had been killed in April.
“There was a dispute where shots were fired inside,” Waller said. “The people started to spill out, and as they spilled out more shots were fired. So we have about three (shooting) scenes.”
He described a “chaotic” scene but said officers arrived within minutes and were assisting the wounded before ambulances arrived. Some of the outside shooting was caught on police surveillance video, he said. “Definitely there were two different shooters,” Waller said. “It looked like they were just shooting randomly at people as they exited the party.”
Reverend Michael Pfleger, senior pastor at nearby Saint Sabina Church, said too often guns are used to express “pain, anger, and frustration.” “They were gathered to remember someone else who was Killed,” Pfleger said on Facebook. “So this is how we remember??? When do we end this GUN MADNESS? Anywhere else in the Country this is a Mass Shooting, in Chicago it’s just another shooting.”
Contrary to what it may seem, police say violent crime in the city is down in 2019 and the department has forecast a percentage decline in shootings and homicides for the third straight year. Still, about 475 homicides have been reported this year and last month the city reached a dark milestone when the number of illegal gun seizures for the year reached an astounding 10,000.
