CHICAGO — Separate shootings left people injured on Navy Pier and in River North overnight, Chicago police said Saturday morning. No arrests have been made.
The Navy Pier shooting occurred as dinner cruise guests debarked near the Ferris wheel around 12:20 a.m.
Chicago police said security guards escorted a man from the ship after he got into an argument with a woman while the boat was docked on the south side of the pier. He returned a few minutes later and fired shots toward the ship, striking a 31-year-old woman in the left knee, according to CPD.
She was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital in good condition.
Witnesses told police that the shooter, described as a Black man with dreadlocks who was dressed in a dark-colored suit, may have fled the scene in a white Chevy Impala.
HeyJackass, a site that independently tracks Chicago violent crime data, has no record of any other shooting at Navy Pier since at least 2010. There has been one murder there: the drowning of 3-year-old Josiah Brown in 2022.
A few hours later, a man celebrating his 30th birthday was shot in River North.
Police said he was walking in the 100 block of West Hubbard when someone fired shots from a passing vehicle. He suffered gunshot wounds to his hand, wrist, arm, and buttocks. In a media statement, CPD said the victim was in good condition at Northwestern.
Crime scene tape was draped around several shell casings at the intersection of Hubbard and LaSalle.
Surveillance camera officers told patrol units that the gunfire appeared to come from a white Mercedes that fled south on LaSalle after the shooting.
The victims are the 39th and 40th people shot on the Near North Side this year. Shootings are down significantly from last year, when the area had 61 shooting victims as of this date, including nine struck in a mass shooting. Still, the number of victims remains above pre-pandemic levels. There were 28 shooting victims on the Near North Side as of this date in 2019.
River North, which lies within the Near North Side, has seen 25 shooting victims this year, down from 27 at this point last year but well above the ten seen as of this date in 2019.
The most recent shooting before this morning occurred outside the Marriott Downtown Magnificent Mile on Monday afternoon.
Police said a gunman walked up to a 37-year-old man in the 500 block of North Rush and started shooting around 4:28 p.m. The victim was struck in the abdomen and leg, leaving him in critical condition, according to CPD. The police did not offer a motive for the crime or describe the shooter.
Red crime scene tape, indicative of the inner crime scene, was hung around the Marriott’s driveway at 541 North Rush.
On October 8, an argument outside a nightclub turned into a shootout that left eight people injured in the 300 block of West Erie.
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