The upbeat mood in a busy Chicago neighborhood known for its restaurants and nightlife quickly turned into horror late Wednesday as shots were fired at a crowd from a fast-moving vehicle, killing four people.
After the shots rang out, some people fell to the ground or screamed, witnesses said.
“I can only describe it as a war zone,” Chicago pastor Donovan Price, who responds to communities and people in crisis, told The Associated Press. ”Just mayhem and blood and screaming and confusion as people tried to find their friends and phones. It was a horrendous, tragic, dramatic scene.”
Price said people in the crowd outside Artis Restaurant and Lounge in the city’s River North neighborhood told him they had been at an album release party for a rapper. Videos on social media showed a red carpet outside and guests mingling and dancing inside.
The Black and LGBTQ-owned Creole restaurant, which opened in April, posted on Instagram that it was created as a safe space “where Black, Brown, Queer, and allied communities could gather, be celebrated, and feel at home in River North.”
They said, “what happened last night disrupted it in the most painful way.”
Mello Buckzz, a rapper from Chicago’s East Side whose fanbase is largely women, was performing at the restaurant for her album release party. She asked for prayers and expressed her anger and sadness on social media.
“My heart broke into so many pieces,” the artist said on Instagram hours after the shooting.
Police said the driver immediately fled and that no one was in custody.
Police said 13 women and five men ranging in age from 21 to 32 were shot, and that the dead included two men and two women. At least three were critically injured, police said Thursday. Those shot were taken to hospitals.
Video showed people waiting and crying outside of hospitals. Other images showed multiple police and ambulances at the scene of the shooting.
Price expressed sadness that the shooting took place outside of a local business aiming to make a difference in the community and just days after city-wide Pride month celebrations.
“Folks need places like that now,” Price said. “It’s a rough world.”
The shooting took place days before the Fourth of July weekend, when Chicago and other major cities often see a surge in gun violence, despite overall decreases in gun violence in Chicago in recent years.
Last year, over 100 people were shot, including at least 19 deaths, during the holiday weekend. Mayor Brandon Johnson said at the time that the violence “has left our city in a state of grief.”
