7 shot, 1 fatally, in mass shooting in Austin neighborhood

After a mass shooting early Sunday morning in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood left seven people shot, including one fatally, neighbors expressed frustration that their calls to break up a large gathering before the shooting went unaddressed.

A group had gathered outside in the 4800 block of West Iowa Street around 1 a.m. when an argument broke out, and unknown individuals started shooting, according to Chicago police.

Police found a 25-year-old woman at the scene unresponsive with multiple gunshot wounds. She was transported to Mount Sinai Hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Six other people were also shot. Five were transported to hospitals in good condition, and one was transported in critical condition, police said.

When around 100 people gathered in a vacant lot a few plots down from her house to loudly party hours before the shooting, Michelle Barnes said she sensed trouble. Cars blocked the street and filled the alleyway, she said Sunday afternoon.

Barnes said she called the police to report the chaotic crowd at 10 p.m., 11:05 p.m., and a third time around 12:30 a.m. One police car came out to the scene, but no significant response arrived before shots broke out, she added.

“I’m frustrated with the police. I’m frustrated with the alderman. I’m frustrated with everybody. Because it’s ridiculous,” Barnes said. “When you call, they don’t come like there’s a problem.”

Police confirmed Sunday that the shooting occurred after a group had gathered to remember a man killed in a car crash four years ago. Burnt-out and toppled tea candles remained on the sidewalk at the scene of the shooting Sunday afternoon.

When asked how police had responded to the gathering before the shooting, a police spokesperson said the only available information had already been shared in a statement and at an early morning news conference.

Remnants of the violent shooting littered the overgrown, vacant lot. A black SUV sitting near the scene had bullet holes in its trunk and rear passenger window. A few strips of yellow police tape remained. Purple latex gloves commonly used by paramedics were scattered on the sidewalk, where a bloodied shirt was left.

Barnes, 56, said she now wants to move. She’d be leaving the home her parents owned, where she’s spent her whole life. She wondered aloud what it would take to keep her block safe as violence seems to close in on it.

“We can’t even live in peace,” she said.

Larell Steel, Barnes’ next-door neighbor, said her sister across the street and other neighbors also made repeated calls to the police ahead of the shooting.

“Everybody on this block called them to get them kids,” Steel said, as the two women talked on their porches Sunday afternoon. “This could’ve been prevented. This could’ve been prevented if they just came and broken them kids up.”

Most of the block’s single-family homes are full of older residents, Steel said. The shooting was a surprise, but trouble has sprung up on the typically peaceful street in recent months, she said, noting a rowdy gathering on a nearby corner last summer and a brief stint of drug dealing on an open side lot across the street last year.

Steel said she had been sleeping when the gathering started but woke up when her sister called to warn her of the potential danger. She said she called police after she heard dozens of gunshots.

Steel said she saw evidence technicians place dozens of yellow markers down the street when she came out Sunday morning.

The young people who filled the vacant lot had seemed to come from outside the neighborhood, said Steel, adding she wished parents would’ve prevented their kids from attending the ultimately violent gathering.

“They just come, they see a nice flat block and they take over, like we can’t do nothing about it. And apparently we can’t do nothing about it, because we call the people and we’re not getting no help,” Steel said.

On the other side of West Iowa Street, Carl Raynor also sat on his porch Sunday afternoon. He said he woke up to the shooting the night before, thinking the bangs were firecrackers until loved ones called to make sure he was safe early in the morning. He’s lived on the street off and on since 1976 but said he is hoping to move out of state now.

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Raynor, 57, said he was shot in the back in May 2022 when he interceded as someone tried to steal his sister’s catalytic converter from her car. In recent years, violence has seemed harder to escape, he said.

“It’s everywhere,” Raynor said. “Police can only do so much. People have to speak up and say something, because once it’s one of your kids or grandkids, you’re going to want some help.”

The youngest of the wounded victims was a 17-year-old girl shot in the leg, police said. She was transported to West Suburban Medical Center in good condition.

Three men in their 20s and one woman in her 20s were transported to Stroger Hospital in good condition. A 29-year-old man with gunshot wounds in his chest and arm was transported in critical condition to Stroger Hospital, police said.

Area 4 detectives are investigating the shooting. Police said no one is in custody.

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