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Gunmen Drove Into Edgewater Field, Killed Cancer Patient's Dog, Police Say

By Mark Schipper | January 24, 2015 3:24pm | Updated on January 26, 2015 8:19am
 Cathy Castro's dog Skruffi was killed by a Jeep that sped through a North Side park as someone inside fired gunshots Wednesday, police said.
Cathy Castro's dog Skruffi was killed by a Jeep that sped through a North Side park as someone inside fired gunshots Wednesday, police said.
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DNAinfo/Mark Schipper

EDGEWATER — A cancer patient is mourning the death of her comfort dog after a horrifying incident in a North Side park last week.

Just around dusk Wednesday, a Jeep sped through a park in the 5300 block of North Sheridan Road, skidded through a pedestrian path and ran over two dogs as someone inside fired gunshots, police said.

The two dog owners — a man who asked to remain anonymous and 51-year-old Cathy Castro — were uninjured.

The incident occurred about 5:10 p.m. on the east side of Sheridan Road, behind a commercial strip, police said. According to a police report, a white Jeep exited Lake Shore Drive on the grass, driving "at a high rate of speed."

The Jeep drove north, as someone inside fired multiple shots, according to the report.

 Tire tracks are seen near The Meadows in Edgewater, where a Jeep sped through the park Wednesday, killing a dog, as someone inside fired shots, police said.
Tire tracks are seen near The Meadows in Edgewater, where a Jeep sped through the park Wednesday, killing a dog, as someone inside fired shots, police said.
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DNAinfo/Mark Schipper

Both Castro and the man told DNAinfo Chicago the incident was a surreal “blur." Each believed they were hearing fireworks until they turned around and saw the Jeep, they said.

Castro said she saw multiple weapons sticking out of the windows.

“He [the other dog owner] yelled ‘duck!’ That’s all I remember,” said Castro, whose dog, Skruffi, was playing with the man's dogs.

“There was nothing we could do. It was all a blur; it happened in like 10 seconds,” said the man, who guessed the Jeep was going 80 mph. “[The driver] had no regard for anyone, or any animal or anything. He just barreled as fast out of that park as he possibly could.”

A stray bullet shattered a glass panel on the patio section behind Breakers, an independent senior living center at 5333 N. Sheridan Road, police said. No one was reported injured inside the building.

The three dogs had been off their leashes and playing in the park when the bedlam began. One of the man’s two dogs had run in front of the vehicle as it swerved onto the path. The Jeep drove over the dog, but did not hit it, he said. The woman’s dog, a small, white guide-and-therapy terrier named Skruffi, could not get out of the way.

The Jeep continued on the path and fled westbound on Bryn Mawr Avenue, according to police.

One of the shots shattered a window of a nearby building, and police found four shell casings at the scene, the police report said.

Surveillance video may have captured the incident, police said.

'A terrible loss'

Castro said her deceased 5-year-old terrier Skruffi had been her close companion as she fought cancer for the last seven years. The disease began on her foot as a melanoma, then spread to her organs and eventually her brain, she said. She is still recovering from a recent surgery against tumors in her brain, she said. 

Skruffi was a rescue animal, an intuitive dog who knew to guide her when her face and part of her body became paralyzed. Castro took Skruffi to treatments, to the grocery store, to the coffeehouses, and she has no doubt the dog gave her a reason to fight and helped her heal, she said. 

“Three times they said I’d be dead,” said Castro, as the cancer kept changing forms and spreading. “And everybody said: Skruffi is your angel.”

Castro had not kept Skruffi to herself, either. Most of the dog walkers in the neighborhood knew the dog by name, and she often brought Skruffi to the various places she volunteers — cancer centers, homeless shelters, programs for rehabilitating the disabled at the beach — for people to use her just as she had: to play, for assistance and as a companion.

“This is such a simple way to give back, and this is such a terrible loss to a lot of people,” said Castro.

As for herself, she is “beyond devastated.”

“I’ve seriously been pent up for three days, crying my head off, and I don’t know if I have any tears left in me,” she said.

Each dog owner initially was worried about the other's dogs.

“I’ve been tearing up about it; I can’t stop. I was maybe a couple of feet ahead of her and said, ‘Oh my God, they hit your dog’, and I just heard her wail,” said the man.

“I had to go chase my other dog, and I was just sad that I couldn’t be there for her,” he said.

With the help of a passing cyclist, the man found his second dog a short time later, hiding beneath a shovel-plow near the lakefront, he said.

“I was screaming bloody murder and thinking that poor man lost his dog, but it was my dog that must have turned around and ...” said Castro, not finishing her sentence.

'The nail in the coffin'

Many local residents call the ribbon of parkland where the dog was killed The Meadows. It runs along Lake Shore Drive, spreads west from the pedestrian viaduct near West Berwyn Avenue to the ramps at Bryn Mawr, and includes a paved walking path winding up its interior boundary. It is filled in the mornings and evenings with walkers, joggers and families pushing strollers.

The incident took place a few blocks north of Montrose Beach, the crowded scene of a shooting in June. Hundreds of people were at the park when shots rang out after an argument between two groups of people. Two women were wounded.

Police said an investigation into Wednesday's incident is ongoing. Ald. Harry Osterman (46th) alerted residents about the incident in an email newsletter, and promised residents he would share more information if it became available.

The male dog owner said he has had enough of life in Chicago. When his lease ends this spring he is headed back to Upstate New York, where “things like this just don’t happen,” he said.

“It’s not just this,” he said. “This is just the nail in the coffin. Everybody says this area is getting better and safer and this is up-and-coming, but I can’t even take my dogs from my house to the park, you know.”

Castro and the man had been out just before the area normally fills up, they said.

“Thank God all the dog walkers weren’t out,” said Castro. “So many other people could have gotten hurt or killed with their dogs.”

Both dog owners saw the incident as especially reckless because of the large tract of land next to the walking path that the driver could have used, instead of the path itself, where the dogs happened to be running. 

“There is not any way he did not see those dogs — he ran over the dog — there’s no doubt about it,” the man said. “The park is huge — they call it The Meadows for a reason: It’s big, it’s expansive. He could have gotten out of the way.”

Castro echoed the sentiment.

“This is what I didn’t understand: They had the whole park to drive through, but the dogs were on the path. They just ran right over [the dogs],” she said.

Contributing: Mauricio Pena

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