Man stabbed to death during possible robbery in the Loop; neighborhood’s 7th murder victim of the year

Update September 9 — The victim has been identified as Michael Byrnes of Blue Island.


A man was stabbed to death in the Loop on Tuesday evening, and police are trying to determine if he was targeted in a botched robbery. He is the Loop’s seventh murder victim of 2022, a number that far exceeds any other year in publicly-available records.

Police responded to the 100 block of West Van Buren after a 911 caller reported seeing a man being attacked by two people in a possible robbery around 10:54 p.m. Minutes later, another 911 caller reported finding a man covered in blood outside 425 South Financial Place.

Investigators discovered a blood trail that linked the two locations. The victim still had some property when police found him.

EMS took the victim to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, according to police.

Publicly-available city records, which date to 2001, show six other people have been murdered in the Loop this year, including three others since August 1. No other year comes close to that level of violence, as seen in this chart:

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About Tim Hecke 5786 Articles
Tim Hecke is CWBChicago's managing partner. He started his career at KMOX, the legendary news radio station in St. Louis. From there, he moved on to work at stations in Minneapolis, Chicago, and New York City. Tim went on to build syndicated radio news and content services that served every one of America's 100 largest radio markets. He became CWBChicago's managing partner in 2019. He can be reached at tim@cwbchicago.com