7 shots, 1 fatal, in Chicago during memorial for man killed in car crash

A large group of people had gathered around 1 a.m. to commemorate four years since a man’s fatal crash when an altercation broke out and gunshots rang out, Deputy Chief Adnardo Gutierrez of the Chicago Police Department said, WLS-TV reported.

Seven people were injured and one of them, a 25-year-old woman, was pronounced dead at a hospital, he said. The other six victims of the shooting were hospitalized, one in critical condition.

“They were celebrating and then something happened and there was a verbal altercation and someone started shooting, or multiple people started shooting,” Gutierrez said at a briefing Sunday.

He said that how many people opened fire is still being investigated, but he said the shots were fired by a person or people who were participating in the commemoration.

Gutierrez said a witness told officers that an altercation occurred prior to the shooting, which occurred when the group was on a street in the Austin neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side.

Among the other six victims, a 29-year-old man was hospitalized in critical condition with a chest wound. The other five, a 17-year-old girl, a 28-year-old woman and three men ages 27, 28 and 29, were hospitalized in good condition, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

Police detectives were investigating the shooting and no one was in custody as of mid-morning Sunday.

Gutierrez said detectives were still working to find and interview witnesses. He urged anyone with information about the shooting to contact police and pass on that information.