Three Shootings On Saturday Leave Two Dead

Boy oh boy did it get violent on the Northwest side of Chicago Saturday night/early Sunday morning, particularly in our two neighborhoods, Avondale and Logan Square. We had three shootings, two of which resulted in a murder, one that was gang-related. Needless to say, three shootings happening in less than 8 hours in these two neighborhoods is OUTRAGEOUS, and this should have EVERY neighborhood resident up in arms. I'll have more of an opinion later, but I want to briefly describe each shooting and the circumstances of them.

The first, and most noticable, shooting occurred in the Avondale community at around 8:00pm Saturday night at the intersection of Roscoe and Monticello, which falls on CAPS Beat 1732. According to the information I have, a 17 year old boy, who allegedly was a Latin King gang member from the Belmont and Central Park set, was shot and killed at the intersection. He was apparently dropped off at Our Lady Of Resurrection on Addison by a dark-colored car with two male Hispanics in it. He was pronounced dead at 8:27pm. A woman was also apparently shot in the incident, but is excepted to make a full recovery. The information I recieved from the shooting is that it may have stemmed from a fight, that possibly was gang-related. Chicago Police somehow obtained pictures of the shooting as it occurred. Apparently, the offenders were gang members from the Maniac Latin Disciple gang from the area of Belmont and Francisco, possibly the "Pee-Wee City" set. The RD number on the shooting is HV163846, with 16541 as the event number.

The second homicide occurred at 1675 North Elston, in front of Krush Nightclub, which is right off the corner of Wabansia and Elston, on Sunday morning around 3:00am. According to the information I got on the incident, it was a shoot-out of some sorts, with one person ending up dead and another critically injured. Asif Memon, of the 4800 block of N Winthrop Ave. in Uptown, 25 years of age, was the victim who died, according to the Cook County Medical Examier's office. Memon was pronounced dead at 3:28am at Illinois Masonic. Apparently, Memon was sitting in the driver's seat of a car with a couple of other people when someone walked up and starting shooting, CPD said. The person who didn't die was shot five times. It wasn't made clear whether he was in the car with Memon or what. I don't have an age on him, but he was last reportedly in critical condition at Illinois Masonic. A third man, who was in the car, who had a gun on him, jumped out of the car and pursued the gunman towards the intersection of Wabansia and Elston, where the two fired gunshots at each other. Neither man was shot, and they both left the scene, according to CPD. It is not clear what exactly caused this shooting, but CPD did say there may have been a dispute inside the club prior to the incident. (Note: I know that this incident techinally occurred in the West Town neighborhood, but hey, it's in the coverage area, and I figured I'd mention it).

The third incident, which occurred just 20 minutes after the second homicide, resulted in a man being shot in the thumb. His age is unknown and we don't know what hospital he was taken to. He was shot on the 2200 block of North Milwaukee Ave., in the heart of Logan Square.

Interestingly enough facts from the Monitcello/Roscoe incident: About 45 minutes later, at 8:57pm, a woman was reportedly beaten up just two blocks south of the shooting by three female Blacks, at Belmont and Monticello. She was hit with a baseball bat. EMS was ordered, and all three offenders were detained and arrested. Around 20 minutes later, at 9:19pm, a battery was reported on the 3500 block of W Belmont. At 10:04pm, roughly 45 minutes after the battery was reported on Belmont, the Lietuanant in 17 reassigned the three Tac units from other Districts working in 17 to specifically the area of where the shooting occurred to prevent possible retailation. CPD was still at the homicide scene as of 11:00pm.

Wow, just wow is all I can personally say. I am very, very outraged at all of this. My God, this neighborhood was like the Wild West this past weekend. There are no words to describe how I feel about all of this. All of you should be outraged, and sick of this. People, we've got to respond to this latest rash of violence. We definitely need to keep calling 911, and attending the CAPS Beat meetings, but we need to do more, I feel. Form block clubs. Start a phone tree. Let's do some big positive loitering events (and I'm willing to coordinate them, too). Let's clean up the trash on our blocks. But we must do something, and now. How many more lives will it be before our everyone takes notice?

If you have insights, opinions, etc., leave them here in the comments section, on the Facebook page, or email me. You're also encouraged to make suggestions on how to better the neighborhood, and to email and call your local CAPS office and Alderman's office to express your anger/outrage. Note: I will be highly monitoring comments on this post, so if your post doesn't make it through, you know why.

Thank you,
Timmy

Update #1, 1:42am - I recieved the following comment from a reader who lives right by the first homicide scene: "the whole area is (was) taped off, there's an abandoned bicycle in the street, and they're combing the area for weapons. The policeman that we spoke to said that the person was likely going to die...I guess from a what a neighbor reported there were two cars stopped right at the Monticello /Roscoe intersection there, she heard shots fired, and then saw a hooded youth run into one of the cars and both cars took off,". Some good information right there, but as always, more would be greatly appreicated.