While they had stopped to talk to the unknown man on a residential street in Englewood, the woman got a feeling she and the two others in her SUV were about to be robbed, so she drove away.
The man they’d been talking to shot at her silver GMC Yukon, hitting the 31-year-old woman in the head about 2 a.m. in the 7300 block of South Union Avenue, police said.
Broken glass and several shell casings remained on the street in the middle of the block, but the SUV made it to the 6800 block of South Perry Avenue, where it was parked in the street with no glass in the rear window and bullet holes splintering the front windshield.
The woman was taken to University of Chicago Medical center, where she was in critical condition Wednesday morning.
A man who lives on the West side of Union Avenue said the gunshots woke him up. He heard what sounded like seven or eight, along with doors slamming and tires screeching.
By the time he got out of bed and looked out the window, police were already there. He wandered outside as police were scouring the scene, which had been taped off in yellow.
“I knew this was going to happen,” he said.
He’d felt the violence coming since others started selling drugs on the block about a month ago, he said. Just two nights before, he’d heard shooting on the block.
“I don’t know why they picked this block.”
A gray cat walked into the crime scene from a yard to its east. As it tiptoed closer to yellow evidence markers, a police officer shined a flashlight at it until it ran back the way it came.
The woman was among at least 11 people shot since Tuesday afternoon in Chicago, including five who have died of their wounds.
Most recently, two people were killed and a third seriously injured when a Jeep full of five people was shot and crashed into a pillar along Lake Street in West Garfield Park.
Someone shot into the Jeep around 3:40 a.m. near the 4300 block of West Lake Street, hitting three of the five people inside, police said. A 22-year-old woman shot in the back and a 21-year-old man shot twice in the chest and once in the wrist were pronounced dead at Mount Sinai Hospital. A 19-year-old man shot in the chest was in serious condition at Stroger Hospital. The other two people in the Jeep were not reportedly injured in the shooting or crash.
Facing east, the dark silver Jeep had crumpled against the northern of two pillars underneath the train tracks that run along Lake Street. Red tape stretched west two another set of pillars, forming a long rectangle around the car. The Green Line to Harlem raced by overhead.
Police found shell casings about two blocks west, near the intersection of Lake Street and Kilbourn Avenue, and taped off another crime scene.
Hours earlier, a 32-year-old man was fatally wounded in a shooting just north of an expressway ramp in Fuller Park.
Just before 12:45 a.m. Wednesday, the man was in the front seat of a car when another man walked up, exchanged words and shot him in the head, police said. The man who was shot was taken to University of Chicago Medical Center, where he was later pronounced dead.
The shooter, who called 911 himself, has a conceal and carry license and was taken into custody, police said.
At the scene, a white Impala faced southbound with its passenger door open and a black Chevy was stopped at an angle in front of the Impala, with its driver’s door open. Both cars had their lights on as police worked the scene. Several people came outside to watch, but all said they didn’t hear anything.
The shooter’s brother arrived, walked up to the tape, and asked police where he was being held. They told him he was at the station just a block away, at 51st and Wentworth.
The man said his brother had called him shortly before and after the shooting and believed the man killed was putting his wife’s life in danger.
“For him to pull out a gun and shoot, the guy had to be doing something he had no business doing,” the brother said.
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