Gunshots resounded across the West Side’s Lawndale neighborhood, wounding two men in the Ogden police district and a third man in the adjacent Harrison district around the same time Tuesday night, according to Chicago police.
Derrick Dixon thought he heard about 30 of the shots, so rhythmic they reminded him of a drumroll, he said.
He came out of the brick two-flat where he lives on the north side of West Cullerton Street to talk with neighbors, but didn’t venture much closer toward the corner to his west where yellow tape now stretched across South Kildare Avenue, tied down on each side of the intersection with Cullerton.
Stripes of red tape crossed Kildare farther north on the street. In between the first red line of tape and the one at Cullerton, yellow evidence markers noted where police had found more than a dozen of the casings.
Plywood covered the street-facing windows of a single-story brick building along the west side of the scene. An outbound Pink Line train slowed as it approached from the east, pausing briefly at the Kostner stop a block south.
After decades of living near violence, “you know what to do and what not to do,” Dixon said. “You just know. I don’t like to say it, but you get immune to things… you just try to take care of yourself and your family.”
The way Dixon sees it, people will always shoot each other, and he doesn’t want to be the next one hit, he said.
Down the street, the wounded were a 25-year-old man shot in both legs and a 30-year-old man shot in his left leg and right arm.
Someone shot the men when they were walking in the 1900 block of South Kildare Avenue shortly after 9:20 p.m., police said. Both were taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where police said they were in good condition.
Of all the places he’s lived – Cabrini Green before it was demolished, and as far north as Evanston Township – this area of Lawndale has been Dixon’s favorite, because of how everyone knows each other, he said. He feels it’s a good neighborhood, he said.
Drawn outside by the gunshots that interrupted the TV show he’d been watching, Dixon stood against the gate outside his building, talking with a woman who said she had been mopping when the men were shot.
“I gotta get my ears checked,” the woman said. “I didn’t hear (expletive).”
Less than 5 minutes after the shooting on Kildare, someone on foot shot into a tan SUV parked in the 3100 block of West Taylor Street, hitting both legs of a 29-year-old man who had been sitting inside, police said. An ambulance took him to Stroger Hospital, where police initially said his condition was serious and later said he was stabilized.
The large SUV remained on Taylor Street, facing west, in the southern of two one-way lanes. Its rear lights were on and the front passenger window was shattered, shards of glass mixing with other litter on the street lined with old furniture including an office chair. In place of official yellow markers, scraps of paper showed where shell casings had fallen.
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