Last October, a gunman opened fire on a passing car at an Albany Park intersection just 21 minutes after Mayor Lori Lightfoot, CPD Supt. David Brown, and their top advisors stood at those same cross-streets for a photo opportunity.
There have been so many shots fired at the intersection of Drake and Ainslie, a local resident operates a YouTube page dedicated to posting surveillance videos of the incidents.
It’s so bad, a few days ago, the city parked a trailer with a set of portable police surveillance cameras at the intersection to monitor the situation.
“Thank you thank you! @chicagosmayor @LoriLightfoot” tweeted State Rep. Jaime Andrade (40th), who lives nearby.
Thank you thank you! @chicagosmayor @LoriLightfoot pic.twitter.com/UmgthvbNgp
— Jaime M Andrade, Jr. (@VoteJAndrade) March 11, 2022
Around 6 a.m. Sunday, two days after Andrade’s tweet, someone rolled up to the intersection and opened fire on the city’s portable police cameras — and recorded themselves doing it. So much for that idea.
The Drake and Ainslie YouTube page caught it from two angles:
But the best view may be in this footage, tweeted by @CPD1617Scanner:
Here’s what it looked like from the overhead camera’s point of view:
— 16th & 17th District Chicago Police Scanner (@CPD1617Scanner) March 15, 2022
No injuries were reported in Sunday’s incident.
On October 2, Lightfoot and Brown went to Albany Park to attend an outdoor police roll call. After the event ended, they relocated to Ainslie and Drake for a sidebar — and a photo session. The Chicago Police Department tweeted this photo of Lightfoot and Brown standing in the intersection, having a staged conversation with local police leadership.
The Drake & Ainslie YouTube account posted video of it.
At 6:01 p.m., the VIPs pulled away, and life returned to normal for 21 minutes.
That’s when a man wearing a black hoodie crosses the intersection where Lightfoot and Brown stood minutes earlier. As he reaches the opposite corner, a car turns through the intersection. The man pulls a gun from his sweatshirt, turns, and opens fire as he moves down the sidewalk. Watch:
In the background, a man who’s walking his dog runs for cover while the shots continue to ring out. Then, the gunman turns around, skips to the corner, and disappears out of camera range.
Scanner audio confirms police received a flood of shots fired calls at the corner of Ainslie and Drake moments after the time seen on the video’s clock. No arrests were made.