Two people were shot by a gunman who opened fire on them in Lincoln Square shortly after midnight Monday, police said. It was the second shooting incident since Friday for the generally-quiet neighborhood that saw only one shooting and one murder for all of last year.
According to a source and a CPD media statement, a 29-year-old man and a 28-year-old woman were traveling south on Western near Lawrence when someone began shooting at them from a dark-colored sedan around 12:05 a.m.
The woman stopped the car to tend to the male victim just south of the Western Brown Line station, but the gunman’s car returned and the shooter began firing on her again, the source said. Twitter user @Drewpy34 shared a pic from the scene:
Police officers in the area heard the gunfire, and one unit followed a vehicle that likely carried the gunman, but a CPD supervisor terminated the engagement as the suspect vehicle headed down the Halsted Street bar strip in Boystown.
An ambulance transported the male victim to St. Francis Hospital in serious condition with three gunshot wounds to his torso. The woman, shot in the hip, was taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center in fair condition.
On Friday evening, a 26-year-old man dropped off at Swedish Covenant Hospital with gunshot wounds to his chest told police he was shot on the 2700 block of West Foster around 11:19 p.m., according to a CPD statement. Police did not release any other information about the incident.
The Lincoln Square community area has seen six shooting incidents and one murder this year, according to CPD data. That compares to one of each for all of 2020. The area had six shooting incidents and no murders for all of 2019; one shooting incident and two murders in 2018; and three shooting incidents with one murder in 2017 and in 2016. Shooting incidents may involve more than one victim under CPD’s crime reporting protocols.