CHICAGO — A 19-year-old man and a 15-year-old boy were both fighting for their lives in hospital after a shooting in the early hours of Halloween on Chicago's South Side, in the Washington Park neighbourhood, Chicago police said. Officers responding to a report of a shooting near East 50th Place and South Vincennes Avenue shortly after 12:20 a.m. on Saturday, October 31, found the two victims with gunshot wounds. The 19-year-old had been shot in the head; the 15-year-old had been shot in the stomach. Both were listed in critical condition. No one else was reported injured, and police have announced no arrest.
Source: Chicago police via Particle News
What police say happened
The shooting happened near the intersection of East 50th Place and South Vincennes Avenue in Washington Park, a residential neighbourhood on Chicago's South Side. Police said officers arrived shortly after 12:20 a.m. to find the 19-year-old and the 15-year-old wounded at the scene. That is, so far, nearly the whole of the official account: the Chicago Police Department has released no information about who fired the shots, how many shots were fired, what led up to the shooting, or whether anyone has been taken into custody. Area One detectives — the detective division that covers this part of the South Side — are leading the investigation.
Source: Chicago police via SquiidAPETV
The two victims and their condition
The 19-year-old man, shot in the head, was rushed to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he remained in critical condition. The 15-year-old boy, shot in the stomach, was taken to Comer Children's Hospital — the children's hospital on the same University of Chicago medical campus in Hyde Park, a short distance from the scene — where he was also listed in critical condition. In line with the rule for minor victims, Awaaz Punjab does not name the boy: he is identified here only by his age and city. Police have not released the 19-year-old's name either, and no updated condition report had been published by Saturday night.
Source: Chicago police via Particle News
What is solid
- A 19-year-old man was shot in the head and a 15-year-old boy in the stomach near East 50th Place and South Vincennes Avenue shortly after 12:20 a.m. on Oct. 31, and both were in critical condition — Chicago police, reported by ABC7 Chicago, WGN, FOX32 and NBC Chicago as well as Particle News
- The man was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center and the boy to Comer Children's Hospital
- Area One detectives are investigating; police have released no suspect, motive or custody information
What is only claimed
- An unnamed witness told reporters the victims were in a car that was being driven erratically before a crash — Particle News notes authorities have NOT verified that account, and police have not confirmed any vehicle or crash in connection with the shooting
- Whether the two victims were targeted, and whether the shooting was connected to any other Halloween-night incident in Chicago: not established in any police account released so far
One shooting in a violent Halloween across the city
Washington Park was an early scene in a Halloween that turned violent in more than one Chicago neighbourhood. Later on Saturday evening, three more people were shot — one of them fatally — in North Lawndale on the West Side, a shooting reported by WLS-TV, WGN-TV, NBC Chicago and the Chicago Sun-Times, with police there also announcing no immediate arrest. The two incidents have not been linked by police, and nothing released so far connects them beyond the calendar: a night when Chicago's streets were full of costumed children and trick-or-treaters ended, in two neighbourhoods several miles apart, with detectives working shooting scenes instead.
Source: EventMonitor source log (WLS-TV, WGN-TV, WMAQ, Chicago Sun-Times)
Why this matters beyond one block
Washington Park sits in the heart of the South Side, a few blocks from the University of Chicago's medical campus where both victims were taken — which is also why their transfer was measured in minutes. For Chicago's large Punjabi and wider South Asian community, concentrated in the city and suburbs and along corridors such as Devon Avenue, overnight gun violence on residential blocks is a recurring safety concern rather than an abstraction: these are the same streets families cross returning from late shifts, and the same hospitals their relatives are taken to. Nothing in the police account released so far suggests any community angle to this shooting — no target, no motive and no suspect have been identified at all — and Awaaz Punjab reports it on the verified facts alone.
One of the two people shot is 15 years old. Consistent with our minor-safety rule, this report gives his age and city only — no name, no photograph and no identifying detail — and describes the second victim, a 19-year-old man, as police described him.
What happens next
The next facts in this case will come from two places: the hospitals, if either victim's condition changes, and Area One detectives, whose investigation police say is active. In shootings where police release this little on the first day, the developments that usually follow are a description of a suspect or vehicle, surveillance-video appeals, or an arrest — none of which had been announced as of Saturday night. Awaaz Punjab will update this story when Chicago police release more. Until then, the verified record is short and stark: two people shot on a Washington Park block shortly after midnight on Halloween, a man of 19 with a head wound and a boy of 15 with a stomach wound, both critical, and no one publicly accused of firing the shots.