Chicago — A man was shot inside a Loop hotel room overnight, bringing the total number of people shot in the downtown neighborhood this year to 35. That is far more shooting victims than in any year since at least 2001.
The latest incident occurred around 2:15 a.m. inside a seventh-floor room at La Quinta Inn & Suites, 1 South Franklin, according to Chicago police records.
Officers at the scene said the offender shot the victim twice in the right thigh and then fled from the building with another man and two women. A Chicago police SWAT team was called to the scene because officers initially suspected that the gunman may have stayed inside the hotel.
EMS took the victim to Northwestern Memorial Hospital in good condition.
Please support CWBChicago’s reporting efforts with a contribution or subscription.
Police said the gunman was a Black male with short dreads who stood 5’6″ to 5’8″ tall. He wore a white hoodie with purple writing on the sleeves and a graphic on the back.
The Loop will set its third consecutive record high for shooting victims this year. According to the city’s publicly available crime data, which dates back to 2001, there were a grand total of 13 shootings and homicides in the Loop from January 1, 2001, through December 31, 2009.
The city’s Violence Reduction Dashboard, which displays data since 2010, shows the number of shooting victims in the Loop as of November 26 each year: