CHICAGO — Three men were shot when at least two shooters in separate vehicles exchanged gunfire in a River North bar district overnight, Chicago police said.
It happened around 2:54 a.m. just west of State Street at 6 West Hubbard on the bustling Hubbard Street bar strip, witnesses said. Chicago police officers in the area reported gunfire and quickly found the victims and several shell casings lying nearby in a crosswalk.
The victims were on the sidewalk when the occupants of two vehicles began shooting at each other, striking the bystanders, according to a CPD media statement. Officers at the scene said at least one gunman fired from a black tow truck that fled north on State Street after the shooting. A witness who spoke with CWBChicago said both gunmen were in tow trucks.
A 22-year-old man and a 26-year-old man both suffered gunshot wounds throughout their bodies. They are in critical condition at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, police said. The third man, 22, received two gunshot wounds to his left arm. CPD said his condition was stabilized at Northwestern.
The shooting occurred just as most bars on Hubbard Street were closing for the night. Officers requested additional units to handle crowd control as people gathered at the shooting scene and fights broke out. Later, officers declared a “10-1” police emergency at Northwestern as a large fight broke out among friends and family members of the victims.
A video posted to the Citizen App showed police and fire units filling the intersection of State and Hubbard moments after the shooting:
The victims are the third, fourth, and fifth persons shot in River North this year. There were eight shooting victims in the neighborhood at this point last year, one as of this date in 2021, and none as of May 14, 2020.
This year’s other two victims were shot during a robbery on February 12. Those victims were targeted in a parking lot on the 300 block of West Ohio around 11:54 p.m. A gunman opened fire during the holdup, striking a 46-year-old man in the shoulder. Another man suffered gunshot wounds throughout his body and was critically injured.
Editor’s note: While the Chicago Police Department’s media statement said the shooting occurred at 3:05 a.m., radio transmissions show that officers reported shots fired at 2:54 a.m., as reflected in this report.