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Latin Music Promoter Shot Dead After Argument

By DNAinfo Staff on June 5, 2013 12:44pm

  Alberto Valencia, of Round Lake, was killed Tuesday afternoon after a shooting in New City.
Alberto Valencia
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CHICAGO — A Latin music promoter who was the patriarch of his Mexican-American family was shot dead Tuesday afternoon in New City.

Alberto Valencia is "one of the best music promoters of his kind here in Chicago," business partner and friend Manuel Juarez said through an interpreter.

Valencia, 45, of the 500 block of Lakewood Terrace in northwest suburban Round Lake was got into "a verbal argument" with someone else in the 4300 block of South Oakley Avenue about 1:35 p.m. Tuesday, said Officer Jose Estrada, a police spokesman.

The person then shot Valencia several times, including in his head, before fleeing the scene, Estrada said.

Valencia was pronounced dead at Stroger Hospital at 2:17 p.m., according to the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office.

Junior Valencia, his 24-year-old nephew, said his uncle was well known in the Latin music scene around Chicago and southern Wisconsin.

Estrada said any comment on whether the shooter, who ran from the scene, knew Valencia personally would be "pure speculation."

The second of seven siblings, Alberto Valencia emigrated from the Southwest Mexican state of Michoacán to Chicago with much of his family, his nephew said.

"He was pretty much the head of the family," Junior Valencia said. "He kept us all going."

The uncle made a name for himself promoting Spanish-language music throughout the area, including at a nightclub in Beloit, Wis., called Adiktion.

Musical acts he helped promote include the Elgin-based Banda Estrellas De Michoacan and the Wisconsin-based Complize Musical.

"He was a hard-working good guy who was successful at what he did," Junior Valencia said.