Man killed in Albany Park seventh person shot within blocks of one another in last three days
A man fatally shot Wednesday evening in Chicago’s Albany Park neighborhood was at least the seventh person wounded or killed by gunfire in the Northwest Side community in the last three days.
Three of the shootings occurred within a block or two from one another.
The latest one was reported about 6:20 p.m. in the 3600 block of West Lawrence Avenue, according to police. The victim, an unidentified man, was taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
That shooting occurred little less than 24 hours after five people, two of them teenagers, were shot on the next block in the 3500 block of West Lawrence. The group was celebrating Mexican Independence when a white Nissan sedan drove by about 10:25 p.m. Tuesday and someone inside fired shots.
The teenaged boys, 15 and 17, were treated at area hospitals in critical condition. Both were shot in their abdomen, and the younger teen was also wounded in his left leg, police said. The others shot included a 21-year-old woman, taken to Swedish Covenant Hospital in serious condition with a gunshot wound to the right hand; a 27-year-old man taken to Swedish in fair condition with a graze wound to the chest; and a 37-year-old man also reported in fair condition, shot in the right leg and taken to AMITA Health Saint Francis Hospital in Evanston.
Less than a day before that, 26-year-old Ernie Perez was shot and killed about two blocks away in the 3600 block of West Argyle Street. Perez was on a sidewalk when he was shot in his armpit area about 8:30 p.m. Monday. He was taken to Illinois Masonic, where he was pronounced dead, police said.
No one was in custody for any of the shootings.
Through Sept. 6, Chicago police statistics show shootings have more than doubled in the Albany Park police district. Considered a safe area in the city statistically, the district saw 41 shootings compared to 20 during the year-earlier period, the statistics show. The two men killed there this week were among at least eight homicide victims in the district so far in 2020.
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