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player ready...A man in his 70s shot two younger men in an apparent domestic dispute Sunday that unfolded in the backyard of his West Town home, and then shot himself, authorities said.
The killings happened just before noon outside an apartment house in the 1700 block of West Erie Street, Chicago Fire Department spokesman Quention Curtis said. Two victims were pronounced dead on the scene, Curtis said, and the third was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The older man and a man in his 40s died at the scene, police said. The man who died at the hospital was also in his 40s. Neighbors and a relative at the scene described the three men as a father and two sons.
Chicago police officials said the investigation is ongoing. Officials would not release the shooting victims’ names.
A witness said he called 911 when at least two gunshots rang out just before noon. The third-year medical student at Loyola University had been studying when he looked out his window into the dusty, fenced-off backyard of the apartment house across the street. He said he saw a wounded man slumped against the building. An older man with a gun stood nearby and walked to where another man lay on the ground.
The person on the ground said, “No, no, no,” and then the gunman shot him three or four times, witnesses said. The gunman left the backyard and walked away.
He returned to the yard seconds later, “fiddled” with the gun and shot himself in the head, the witness said.
“It just didn’t seem real,” the witness said.
The gunman was described as a hardworking man who took up scrap-metal collecting after retiring.
Relatives of the men on the scene declined to comment.
Several neighbors said the dispute hinged on the faded yellow apartment house with boarded-up windows in the front and a “for sale” sign in the door. A padlocked fence surrounded the backyard of the three-story building.
George Petzer said he was walking a dog with his brother along the quiet, shady street around 10:30 a.m. when he saw two men trying to saw open a lock on the backyard fence.
Petzer said he did not know if either or both of those men were among the shooting victims.