Ten people were wounded, one fatally, in two shootings within blocks and minutes of each other Wednesday evening in the West Side’s North Lawndale community, Chicago police said.
A 15-year-old old boy was shot and killed, police said, and five other teens were among the wounded.
The 15-year-old boy was Damarion L. Benson, of the 300 block S. Campbell Ave., Brittany Hill, spokeswoman for the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed Thursday afternoon.
Each shooting — one near 13th Street and Christiana Avenue and the other three blocks away in the 1400 block of South Ridgeway Avenue — occurred a little after 6 p.m. and about five to 10 minutes of one another.
Yellow and red tape blocked off streets and a nearby alley off Douglas Boulevard and Christiana. Several officers milled around the crime scene, including at least one holding a rifle.
Officers in SWAT gear were also around the scene for a time.
A few blocks west, police cordoned off Ridgeway for a block or two going south.
From the site of the Ridgeway shooting, Chicago police Deputy Chief Ernest Cato pleaded for the public’s help in solving the cases.
“This is becoming an effort where we’re going to need an all-hands-on-deck approach. And that approach is going to involve our community,” said Cato. “Our community getting involved and saying what’s going on. Our community who has cellphone pictures, who has Facebook information. We’re going to need your help.”
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In a news conference late Thursday morning, Brendan Deenihan, the Chicago Police Department’s chief of detectives, said most of the people targeted in shootings Wednesday night were not providing police any information.
At the news conference, Pastor James Brooks, who said his family has lived in North Lawndale since the 1950s, asked community members who have information about the shootings to speak up.
“We need to come together in times like this,” he said.
The victims from Douglas and Christiana were: A 15-year-old boy was shot in the head and pronounced dead at Stroger Hospital. Four other victims were taken to Mt. Sinai Hospital, including a 16-year-old in grave condition after being shot in the head; two 24-year-old men including one shot in the left shin and the other in the right hip; and a 22-year-old man shot in the left foot. The conditions of the men in their 20s were stabilized.
For the shooting on Ridgeway, three victims were taken to Mt. Sinai including a 14-year-old boy shot in the right arm in good condition. The other two victims were a 22-year-old man shot in the right thigh in good condition, and an 18-year-old man shot in the upper body and in critical condition. A 15-year-old boy was also shot in the right leg and a 17-year-old boy was grazed in the back, both of whom were taken in good condition to Stroger.
The 15-year-old was not a target, Deenihan said Thursday. He was in his dad’s car at a stop sign when a stray bullet hit him.
In the Ridgeway shooting the first two victims were sitting on a back porch on Ridgeway when two dark-colored cars pulled up into a vacant lot and two occupants in the car started shooting, Deenihan said. The suspects then fled the scene.
The third and fourth people shot were driving toward that area when they saw there was a shooting and they tried to leave. A separate group of men in another car then started shooting at them, causing the driver to lose control and the car to flip over, Deenihan said. The two men in the car got out and the suspects continued to shoot at them, Deenihan said.
Anyone with information about the shootings is urged to call Area 4 detectives at 312-746-8252.