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| A cop called out “shots fired” on Michigan Avenue just after 2 a.m. on Thursday. A shell casing was recovered. | Google |
A 25-year-old woman was shot overnight as a vehicle she was riding in came under fire on Lake Shore Drive and in the heart of the Michigan Avenue shopping district, according to a police statement and sources. Police have not yet determined where the woman suffered her injury, but a shell casing was recovered at Michigan Avenue and Huron, near the old Apple Store. The police department is currently listing 1621 North Lake Shore Drive as the shooting scene, but no evidence of gunfire has been found there.
Here is what we have learned so far:
At 2:07 a.m., a patrol officer called out “shots fired” in the 700 block of North Michigan Avenue, saying that he “definitely” heard at least two shots. Part of the incident was captured on his dash camera, he would later say.
The officer said two vehicles were “chasing each other up and down Michigan Avenue” when the shots began. Both vehicles were northbound at the time of the gunfire, but one car pulled a U-turn at Oak Street and continued to the emergency room entrance to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, 251 East Huron.
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| A silver Volkswagen CC like this one may have been used by the shooter, police said. | Carmax |
The second vehicle continued northbound and entered Lake Shore Drive where it was lost by officers.
At the hospital, the woman underwent surgery to her right leg. A police spokesman said she is in good condition. Outside of the hospital, a white Dodge Charger with White Sox vanity plate “LOW ND” sat with three bullet holes in its side.
The driver of the Dodge told police that he and the victim were traveling southbound on Lake Shore Drive at Belmont when someone in the other car opened fire on them. But police scoured the drive from Belmont to Fullerton without finding any shell casings. No calls of shots fired were received from the Lake Shore Drive area overnight, according to a police source.
After coming up empty-handed in their search for shell casings, police declared 1621 North Lake Shore Drive—the northbound lanes at North Avenue—as the address of the shooting. They have yet to find a crime scene there.
Cops later caught up with the suspected shooter’s vehicle and a pursuit broke out on southbound Lake Shore Drive at Chicago. The chase continued for several miles before a police supervisor terminated the pursuit as it reached the California Avenue exit on the Stevenson Expressway.
The suspect vehicle was described as a silver Volkswagen CC with tinted windows.
