After a few quiet nights, gun violence returned to Chicago's cold streets early Saturday morning with three people killed by gunshots and one person left with tears, blood-stained clothing and a friend's body.
Laverne Smith stood crying at one end of a vacant lot in the Lawndale neighborhood on the West Side early this morning while her friend, close like a brother, lay covered by a white sheet behind a maroon van at the other end.
Ronnie Chambers, 33, no address available, had been in the driver's seat of the van, which had just arrived in the 1100 block of South Mozart Street when one person, probably two, opened fire, police said. Chambers, identified by family members at the scene and later by police, died at the scene, in Smith's arms.
Smith wore a pink blood-stained shirt under a pink jacket, white pants dotted with drops of blood, and pink sandals. She paced the crime scene, at the north end of Mozart Drive where it ends at Fillmore Street, letting out occasional screams and leaning on her friend for support.
"I held him, they had to pry me from him," she said, crying. "He was breathing, gasping."
At least one other man, 21, was inside the van when the shooting started, police said. He had jumped from the front passenger seat to the back, quick thinking that police said probably saved his life. He was wounded in the thigh and taken to Mount Sinai Hospital. Police did not say how many people were inside the van. They also did not say exactly how many shooters there were, but did say seven shots were fired.
The shooting happened across the street from Safer Foundation North Lawndale, an Illinois Department of Corrections transitional facility for adults with criminal records, and half a block west of a fire station.
Family and friends, none of whom wanted to give their names, circled the north end of the scene, marked by yellow tape hung around trees, light poles and cop cars.
A young man at the scene who refused to give his name but said he saw the shooting called the gun used a "big boy."
"Look at that (bullet) hole," the young man said, motioning to the passenger side door on the van. "That's a full nickel."
An east-facing car sat abandoned in the T intersection formed by Mozart and Fillmore. Police weren't sure whether the people who abandoned the car were involved in the shooting or freaked out and fled the scene. Police found casings from two weapons – one a rifle – whose bullets had entered the van from both sides.
"He was gangsta with his (expletive)," the man said of the individual or individuals who did the shooting. "He knew what he was doing."
Despite his apparent proximity to the attack, he explained to a detective that he could not help police do their jobs. He later complained to a supervisor about their response time – he said 27 minutes but police said 3. Police said that they received one 911 call about shots being fired in the area.
A 16-year-old boy who said he was with the victims when the shooting happened wandered around the lot, looking toward the ground most of the time. He looked emotionally spent after being held by police for a short time at the scene.
"I just want to go home," he said, though he had no ride home. "It just happened so fast. I'm tired of explaining myself."
In the other fatal overnight shooting, three men were shot about 4 a.m. outside of a diner at the corner of Wallace Street and Pershing Road in the Bridgeport neighborhood on the South Side, police said. Two men died at the scene.
More details to come.
pnickeas@tribune.com
Twitter: @PeterNickeas
