41 shot, 7 killed in Memorial Day weekend gun violence

CHICAGO (SUN TIMES MEDIA WIRE) - At least 41 people were shot — seven fatally — in Chicago over Memorial Day weekend, including five people shot in a single incident Sunday on the Near West Side.

That shooting happened just after 6 a.m. in the 1300 block of West Hastings Street, Chicago police said, leaving two dead and three others wounded.

Martez Cox, 27, and Antonio Green, 28, were taken to Stroger Hospital, where they died, police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office said. Two women shot while sitting in a sedan on Hastings were in good condition at Mount Sinai Hospital. One, 31, had been struck in the hip and the other, 25, was hit in the left arm.

A third wounded man who police believe was involved in the shooting is in custody at Stroger Hospital, where he was being treated for a graze wound to his nose, police said. Charges are pending against him.

Investigators determined Monday that Cox and Green were the two primary shooters in the incident, Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said. Two more people with guns were arrested and will be charged with aggravated discharge of a firearm and other weapons violations.

Last year, seven people were killed and 32 more wounded in shootings across the city over Memorial Day Weekend, which typically marks the unofficial start of summer.

In 2017, six people were killed and 44 were wounded over the holiday weekend, while 2016 saw six people killed and 63 wounded.

In the case of five people shot on the Near West Side on Sunday, Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said investigators believe the incident is related to an earlier shooting Sunday morning on the same block of West Hastings.

In that incident, officers responded to a large disturbance about 1:33 a.m., police and the medical examiner’s office said. They heard reports of gunshots and found a 27-year-old John Benford hit in the chest and unresponsive.

Benford was pronounced dead at Stroger Hospital, authorities said. A 25-year-old woman was hit in the forearm and took herself to the same hospital. A 19-year-old man later showed up to Northwestern Memorial Hospital with gunshot wounds to the right arm and left leg.

Over the long Memorial Day weekend, the Sun-Times tracked shooting incidents from 5 p.m. Friday through 5 a.m. Tuesday morning.

Just after midnight on Tuesday, one man was killed and two other people were wounded in a shooting on the 606 trail in Logan Square on the Northwest Side.

The trio — a 22-year-old man, a 20-year-old man and a 19-year-old woman — were walking on the trail in the 1800 block of North Monticello Avenue when three unknown males approached them, asked for their gang affiliations and then fired shots, Chicago police said.

The 22-year-old was shot in the chest and back and pronounced dead at Norwegian Hospital, police said. The Cook County medical examiner’s office has not released details on this fatality.

The 20-year-old was taken to Stroger Hospital with a gunshot wound to the lower backside and his condition was stabilized, police said. The woman suffered a gunshot wound to the abdomen and was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in critical condition. None of the people shot are “known to police,” police said.

A little over an hour earlier, a man was fatally shot in Scottsdale on the border of Chicago and the southwest suburb of Burbank.

The 36-year-old got into an argument with two teenage boys about 11 p.m. Monday in the 8500 block of South Cicero Avenue when one of the teens pulled out a gun and shot him, Chicago police said. The man was struck in the chest and taken to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn where he was pronounced dead.

The two teens ran north on Cicero and are not in custody, police said. Area Central detectives are investigating.

On Saturday, two people were killed in separate shootings in the Winneconna Parkway and Roseland neighborhoods on the South Side.

Two people were on the sidewalk about 10:08 p.m. in the 400 block of West 77th Street when someone in a vehicle fired shots, police said.

Tito Wade, 43, was shot multiple times and taken to University of Chicago Medical Center where he was pronounced dead, authorities said.

A 31-year-old man was shot in the leg and brought to the University of Chicago Medical Center where his condition was stabilized, police said.

A few hours earlier, a 29-year-old was killed while standing on a porch in Roseland.

About 6:30 p.m., Michael Brown was in the 100 block of West 109th Place when someone came out of the gangway firing shots. Brown was shot in the chest and died at Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn.

On Saturday night, a person was shot by police in Lawndale on the West Side.

Officers were investigating a large group of people in the 1100 block of South Whipple just after 10 p.m. when they saw a man “drinking from a bottle of beer” in a vacant lot, according to Deputy Chief Al Nagode.

When the man saw the officers, he threw the bottle to the ground and ran east through the lot into an alley, Nagode said. As the officers followed, the male turned and fired a single shot in their direction.

The officers returned fire, striking the man in the “left rear,” Nagode said. A weapon was recovered.

The man was taken to a hospital, where he was in critical but stable condition, police and a fire department spokesman said.

The Civilian Office of Police Accountability will conduct an investigation into the use of force and the involved officers will be placed on 30-day paid administrative leave, per department policy.

Twenty-five more people were injured in shootings over the holiday weekend, including a man shot during a robbery Monday in South Chicago, a 17-year-old girl who was among three shot in a drive-by Saturday in Brighton Park and a man and teenage boy shot Friday in Lawndale on the Southwest Side.