Humboldt Park Shooting Kills Michael Howard Jr., 18, Wounds 6 Others, Sends Car Into CTA Bus
A group of six people standing near an alley in Humboldt Park had no warning before two cars pulled up and multiple gunmen stepped out and started shooting. By the time the gunfire stopped, seven people had been hit, one of them fatally, and a wounded driver had crashed her car into a CTA bus blocks away.
Chicago police said the shooting happened just after 12:15 p.m. Sunday in the 700 block of North Christiana Avenue. All six people in the group were struck by gunfire. One of them, identified by the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office as 18-year-old Michael Howard Jr., was taken to Stroger Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The other five members of the group survived. A 14-year-old boy was shot in both thighs and taken to Stroger Hospital in good condition. An 18-year-old man was shot in the shoulder and also taken to Stroger in good condition. A 21-year-old man was shot in the leg and brought to Stroger in good condition. A 26-year-old man was struck in the foot and got himself to Stroger, where he was reported in good condition. A 24-year-old man, shot in the leg and stomach, was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital and was initially listed in critical condition.
A seventh victim, a 30-year-old woman, was hit by gunfire while sitting in her car nearby. Police said she was struck in the hip and lost control of the vehicle, crashing into a CTA bus. She was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in good condition. The bus driver was taken to a hospital for observation as a precaution.
Area Four detectives are handling the investigation. Police have not released a description of the shooters or said what may have caused the shooting.
The shooting broke out on a Sunday afternoon as residents were headed to church or running errands. Belinda Lynn-Wiley said she and her family were getting ready to leave for services when the gunfire started.
"We were getting ready for church. Me, my grandchildren, everything. We just had a whole lot of, like 'bam, bam' like an army or something," she said.
Lynn-Wiley said she is used to hearing gunshots in the neighborhood but that Sunday's shooting sounded different. "It wasn't a normal shot," she said. "And I was like, well, Lord, I'm not going to fear. I'm going to the house of the Lord, going right in the door."
Another resident, who lives above street level nearby, said the sound of gunfire is common on her block. "It's like every night, I live upstairs, you always hear something. Chicago Avenue, something, somebody got shot or, you know, it's just the drugs, the people walking around."
James Aziz, a community activist in Humboldt Park, said he wants attention paid to young people in the neighborhood doing positive things, arguing that it gets buried under news of violence. "We just got to start promoting more positivity because there's a lot of positivity that's going on with the youth, that's going on with people. But the truth of the matter is, a lot of times that's not what's exposed," he said.
Sunday's attack is the second Chicago shooting this summer to wound four or more people at once. On Aug. 29, gunfire at a reunion gathering in Washington Park wounded 16 people, one fatally. Police have not said whether the two shootings are connected.
Chicago police have set up an interactive tracker for residents to follow shootings and other crime reports by neighborhood. No arrests have been made and no charges have been filed in Sunday's shooting. Area Four detectives are asking anyone with information to come forward.
