April 16, 2010By ART GOLAB Staff Reporter
Responding to an unusually bloody night of shootings that left seven dead and 13 others wounded in just 12 hours, Chicago police Supt. Jody Weis said today that he’ll put his department’s summer crime-fighting plan in place early.
“Last night was not a good night,” Weis said at a news conference this afternoon at police headquarters.
Details of the summer crime-fighting strategy could be announced as early as Monday.
The department already has stepped up targeted enforcement in violent areas and vehicle impoundment, according to Weis.
No arrests have been made in the shootings, which pushed the murder toll in Chicago so far this year to 97. At this point last year, 81 people had been killed.
Most of the shootings occurred on the South Side and West Side of the city.
All appear to have been gang-related, according to Weis, who said witnesses had come forward but urged more people to come forward with information and break the code of silence that makes it so hard to fight street violence.
It began just after 4:30 p.m. Thursday. That’s when Anthony Lopez, 22, was shot in the chest at 1700 W. Cullerton St., according to the Cook County Medical Examiner's office. Lopez died at Stroger Hospital.
Among the other shootings:
• About an hour later, in the Marquette Park neighborhood on the Southwest Side, someone was shot in the 2500 block of West 66th Street while walking on the street. The victim — whose age and gender weren’t disclosed — was hospitalized with a gunshot wound to the neck, according to police.
• Then, just before 6 p.m., Bernard Hatcher, 30, was shot repeatedly as he stood with a group of people in the 7800 block of South Maryland Avenue on the South Side. He died at Stroger Hospital, a medical examiner's spokesman said.
• At 6:08 p.m. in the South Side Calumet Heights neighborhood, two people were shot while walking in the 2500 block of East 93rd Street, one in a leg, the other in an arm. They were in good conditinon at Advocate Trinity Hospital.
• Two blocks from the shooting on 66th Street, two people were shot and wounded at 6:27 p.m. in the 2700 block of West 66th.
• Just after 7:30 p.m. on the South Side, a man riding his bike in the 500 block of East 88th Street was shot in the leg and wounded.
• Around the same time, someone in a red pickup truck shot a 16-year-old and a 17-year-old who were playing basketball at Nat King Cole Park at 361 E. 85th St., according to police. The younger boy was in serious condition with gunshot wounds to his right hip and calf, while the other teen suffered a gunshot wound to the neck and was in critical condition.
• At 8 p.m., a 28-year-old woman was shot while two uniformed police officers nearby responded to a call of a man with a gun at East 84th Street and South Colfax Avenue, police said. The officers were asking a crowd at 8349 S. Colfax Ave. if they had seen the gunman when they heard shots and saw flashes from a gangway. The woman was taken in good condition to Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
• At 10:25 p.m., Anthony Williams, 29, was shot at 7042 S. St. Lawrence. He died at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, according to the medical examiner’s office.
• Less than an hour later, a man in a passing vehicle shot and killed an 18-year-old around 11 p.m. in the 900 block of West 53rd Street. Deandre Morgan was pronounced dead at Stroger Hospital.
• At 11:17 p.m., police responded to a person shot in the 870 block of South Ada Street. Ramone Cook, 19, was shot at 8732 S. Ada St. and pronounced dead at Little Company of Mary Hospital and Health Care Centers in Evergreen Park.
• A woman died and two men were critically wounded in two shootings near Washington Park on the South Side around midnight. Kristle Jackson, 23, died after being shot at 35 E. 58th St., according to the medical examiner’s office. The shooting also left a 32-year-old man in critical condition with gunshot wounds to both legs. A separate shooting nearby around the same time sent another man to the hospital, also in critical condition, with gunshot wounds to his legs and neck.
• At 1:50 a.m. Friday, a 36-year-old man was shot and wounded as he sat in a parked car at 4840 W. Hirsch in the West Side Austin neighborhood, police said.
• Just past 3 a.m. in the 1400 block of West 110th Street, Roger Walker, 30, was shot and killed.
[i]Contributing: Sun-Times Media Wire
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