Modern day gangsters in Chicago have graduated from carjackings and drive-by shootings to something new and exciting: the rolling gun battle. In scenes that look like fifth-grade productions of Hollywood shoot-em-up scenes, carloads of gang bangers and thugs are shooting it out, even in upscale neighborhoods including the city’s famous Magnificent Mile.
Unlike Hollywood, these wannabe tough guys are using real guns and real bullets. While most folks will shed few tears for the participants hurt or killed in the gang violence, innocents also suffer injuries and even death.
At the same time, Cook County’s Soros-funded prosecutor Kim Foxx doesn’t bother to charge groups of gang members who shoot it out in the city, even when cops catch them in the act. Even when one of the participants winds up dead and two more were wounded during the “mutual combat.”
Rather than charging them all with felony murder and getting them off the city’s streets, Foxx ordered them released without any charges. No word on if she ordered their guns returned as well.
The latest incident happened Monday evening. A mile-long “mostly peaceful” rolling gun battle ended when the vehicle of one of the participants crashed outside Lakeview High School. Errant rounds flew through some of the high school’s windows. While the driver fled the crash, the passenger remained firmly anchored to his seat suffering from a headshot. Ironically, a spent 9mm shell casing was found on his shoulder.
CWB Chicago has this story:
Police found shell casings littered across a nearly mile-long stretch of Irving Park Road after the occupants of two vehicles apparently shot at each other while riding through North Center and Lakeview late Monday.
Officers found one of the vehicles crashed outside of Lakeview High School with its passenger dead, its driver gone, a gun in the car, and more than 20 shell casings at the scene, according to initial reports. Bullet holes were seen in the school’s windows.
Monday’s shootout occurred along the same stretch of Irving Park Road where another possible rolling gun battle ended with a woman dead after her car was struck by one of the shooters’ vehicles, according to police.
Beginning around 10:50 Monday night, police began receiving calls of shots fired near Irving Park Road and the Chicago River. At 10:52 p.m., police found a stolen white Jeep bearing separately stolen license plates crashed on the corner of Ashland Avenue and Irving Park Road.
Its passenger, an unidentified man of unknown age, was unresponsive with four gunshot wounds, including one to his head, a CPD report said. An officer at the scene said a spent shell casing was resting on his shoulder. Doctors pronounced him dead at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center a short time later.
Yet another rolling gun battle a day earlier in the same neighborhood ended with one participant crashing into a passing vehicle, ejecting the 37-year-old female passenger from the passing car, killing her.
Again, CWB Chicago covers the carnage (in another story):
A rolling shoot-out between the occupants of two cars in North Center ended when one of the vehicles collided with an SUV, killing its female passenger and injuring its driver early Sunday, police said. All of the people who were involved in the shoot-out fled the scene, but one of their cars was left behind with a gun inside, according to a police report.
Dispatch records show a CPD canine officer saw the occupants of one car shooting at another as they sped westbound on Irving Park Road from Damen Avenue around 3:03 a.m. Police later said the occupants of a Toyota Camry and a black sedan were shooting at each other as they headed west on Irving.
Police said that the Camry struck a Nissan Rogue at Western Avenue, causing a 37-year-old woman to be ejected from the Rogue’s passenger seat. She was pronounced dead at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center a short time later. The Rogue’s driver, a 27-year-old man, was taken to Masonic with injuries that are not life-threatening, police said. Police did not know which direction the Rogue was traveling when the Camry struck it.
Days earlier, more rolling gun battles had been caught on video and posted for all to see.
On September 30th, a shootout raged for up to two miles in the West Loop area, resulting in five innocents catching errant rounds.
Here’s the story from CWB Chicago:
Witnesses reported seeing the occupants of two or three SUVs shooting at each other as the cars drove through the West Loop area around 4:55 p.m. According to officers, the gunbattle left shell casings littering streets from Jefferson and Lake to Desplaines and Kinzie and as far north as Milwaukee and Chicago.
Update 8:53 p.m. — Chicago police just released the following statement:
In the 800 block of N. Milwaukee, on Sep. 29, 2021, at approx. 4:54 p.m., two unknown vehicles were driving on the street when an occupant inside one of the vehicles began firing shots towards the second vehicle. There were five total gunshot wound victims. There are no offenders in custody. Area Three Detectives are investigating.
Male, 25 – gunshot wound to the buttocks and transported to Northwestern Hospital initially reported in good condition.
Male, 27 – gunshot wound to the arm and transported to Stroger Hospital initially reported in good condition.
Male, 29 – gunshot wound to the back and transported to Northwestern Hospital initially reported in critical condition.
Female, 30 – graze wound to the leg and transported to Northwestern Hospital initially reported in good condition.
Male, 48 – gunshot wound to the leg and transported to Northwestern Hospital initially reported in good condition.
And there’s more…
This #Chicago violence @chicagosmayor @LoriLightfoot needs to stop! You almost orphaned our child yesterday in #FultonMarket Shootout Our car got shot in this video! We’re lucky to be alive. Man screaming at end got shot. @abc7_chicago @nbcchicago @Chicago_Scanner @GovPritzker pic.twitter.com/9iN7i10zzi
— AJ (@ant_kneee) September 30, 2021
And still more (NSFW… language that is laugh-out-loud funny in the last nine seconds)
A few people have expressed their concerns and outrage at this brazen criminal violence. However, the gang members have remained generally indifferent to residents’ concerns. Why not? It appears they are above the law.
And the bodies keep stacking up.
Is it any wonder that one city, Chicago, has more murders so far this year than almost all entire states had during all of 2019? In August, Mayor Lightfoot’s Mogadishu on Lake Michigan had more murders than 38 entire states.
At the current rate, Chicago may have more homicides by the end of October than all of Illinois had in 2019 (832). What an achievement.