The Rev. Michael Pfleger is demanding offenders face consequences for Sunday’s shooting outside St. Sabina, the second shooting to occur on his turf this year.
After an argument inside the St. Sabina gym during a basketball tournament led to a triple shooting Sunday afternoon, Pfleger said he was suspending their men’s basketball league on Sundays and is working with police in an effort to find the shooter.
“That league for grown men on Sunday nights is suspended as of now,” Pfleger, a longtime activist against gun violence, said Monday. “There’s got to be consequences for actions.”
The shooting outside the well-known Auburn Gresham church took place about 4:10 p.m. after an argument during the tournament.
All three of the victims, between the ages of 30 and 38, were in stable condition as of Sunday evening and no one is in custody, according to police.
A man described as “heavyset” and wearing all black began to fire into the crowd, the report stated. Someone else, wearing a black puffer coat and gray sweatpants, started firing back at the same time while a third person drove by in a Mazda SUV, also firing, according to the police report.
Paramedics found one of the men shot in the gym at 1210 W. 78th Place, a second about a block east and a third at a nearby Walgreens, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation. Two cars crashed while trying to flee the scene in the 7700 block of South Racine Avenue, the source said, and Gresham (6th) District police recovered around 10 shell casings from the scene.
A 30-year-old man was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center with a shoulder wound, a 33-year-old man was taken to Holy Cross Hospital with a gunshot wound to the foot, and a third, 38-year-old man was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn with a gunshot wound to the hip. Per the police report, none of the victims were from Auburn Gresham.
The men’s basketball league is part of The Ark of St Sabina and Saints Basketball League and has around 12 teams. The adult men’s league has 75 to 100 members, Pfleger said.
While security is present at basketball games, said Pfleger, pat-downs and bag-checks were not conducted for adult league games because of their presumed better behavior compared to leagues for younger ages.
“We don’t do that because you figure you don’t have to do that with adults in their 30s and 40s, but obviously they don’t know how to carry themselves like adults,” Pfleger said.
Pfleger also said that he was collaborating with police and that camera footage captured “everything.”
“I don’t like anybody going to jail,” said Pfleger. “But here’s what I do know: when you shoot, you go to jail.”
This is the second multi-victim shooting to occur outside the church, a longtime center of activism against gun violence, this year. In May, seven teenagers were wounded in a drive-by shooting that targeted the affiliated school’s graduation party. Pfleger offered a $10,000 reward for anyone who could help apprehend the aggressors in the shooting.
No one is in custody for that shooting, police said Sunday. Church representatives didn’t immediately return requests for comment.
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Pfleger is still unsure whether they will be offering a reward this time around but he is encouraging people to send him information about the shooter.
“I was angry,” said Pfleger, who was about 10 minutes away from the church when the shooting took place Sunday. “I’m still angry, and this is not going to be tolerated.”
Pfleger, who has spoken over the years about the dangers of gun violence, said he had been working hard with St. Sabina to stop violence in the neighborhood with some measures of success, but Sunday’s shooting showed it’s not over yet.
“It just reminds us of how vulnerable this gun violence is,” he said. “Numbers are down in the city, but a given weekend, things can go crazy.”