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‘Chaos, pure chaos’: 23 shot at Willowbrook Juneteenth party
One person was killed in the shooting at a holiday gathering in a parking lot in an unincorporated area outside the southwest suburb, officials said. No one is in custody.
chicago.suntimes.com
A Juneteenth weekend celebration held in a Willowbrook strip mall parking lot was becoming a tradition among members of the Hinsdale Lake Terrace apartments.
Barbecue chicken, a card table, red plastic cups for drinking. Even DuPage County sheriff’s deputies were taking part in the festivities as the party moved into the early Sunday morning.
But celebration turned violent as gunfire broke out in the crowd of several hundred people.
In a matter of seconds, bullets sprayed the parking lot, wounding at least 20 people, one fatally, before 12:30 a.m. in a parking lot near Route 83 and Honeysuckle Rose Lane, according to the DuPage County Sheriff’s Deputy Chief Eric Swanson.
“It was chaotic. Chaos, pure chaos,” said Nayetta Reed, 43, who said she was in the crowd as gunfire rang out but was uninjured.
Sheriff’s deputies in the area heard the gunfire and responded, Swanson told reporters Sunday morning. He said “at least 20” people were wounded by gunfire.
Some of the victims were taken to hospitals in DuPage, Will and Cook counties, Swanson said, and several got to hospitals on their own.
It was unclear what prompted the shooting or how many people were being sought, Swanson said. He did not disclose the age or genders of any of the victims.
Reed said she had broken up at least two fights among teenage girls before the shooting. Sheriff’s deputies had intervened as well, witnesses told the Sun-Times. But Reed suspects the shooting was unrelated to those previous fights.
Several witnesses told the Sun-Times the gunfire came from the far south side of the lot, away from where people were gathering in front of a BCD Liquors and Five Star Pantry.
Reed said she heard at least 100 gunshots within 10 or 15 seconds.
Residents of the nearby apartment complex had held similar Juneteenth parties in the lot for the previous two years, Reed said. It had always been peaceful.
This year, though, the crowd size had become “excessive,” Reed said, estimated there were around 200 or 300 people.
“Since Juneteenth has come about, we’ve been celebrating. And usually the sheriffs are out here with us. It’s very controlled, it’s peaceful,” Reed said. “I don’t know what happened. I really don’t know what happened last night. It just went left.
“We’ll probably never do another one,” she said.
Later Sunday morning, residents of the apartments looked over police tape as investigators placed dozens of evidence markers throughout the parking lot strewn with cups, shoes, a turned over trash can.
Witnesses suspect the number of people shot is higher than officially reported. Some people with minor gunshot wounds have avoided going to the hospital, Reed said.
One man Sunday said he had been shot in his lower leg and had gone to a hospital but left after waiting several hours to be seen by a doctor. He asked not to be named.
David Barnes, 25, said he ran from the crowd as gunshots rang out. The lot was filled with parked cars.
He said he noticed a lot of new people in the celebration that had typically been for longtime residents of the nearby apartments.
“That’s how it had been. Everybody knew each other. That’s how it should’ve been,” he said. The party had started earlier in the afternoon, around 4 p.m., with grilling, Barnes said.
U.S. Rep. Sean Casten said he was heartbroken by the shooting.
“We live in a tragic reality where you cannot go to school, go to the grocery store, go to your place of worship, or celebrate holidays like the Fourth of July or Juneteenth without fear of being shot,” Casten said in a statement. “Change is needed — we cannot allow this to be the status quo.”
