UPTOWN — A video posted online last week shows a group of young men in an escalating brawl outside an Uptown church that spills across Sheridan Road, threatening seemingly terrified bystanders who shield themselves and children from the fight.
Information posted alongside the video on LiveLeak.com, titled “An almost gang fight caught on tape in Uptown, Chicago,” says the incident took place July 8. But a post published on the community blog Uptown Update's Facebook page late Monday confirms that the video stems from a fight in August 2009, which the website covered in a report at the time.
Judy Gall, Executive Director of Alternatives Youth Center, which appears in the video as the backdrop of the fight, agreed the video is years old based on a storefront caught on camera that recently changed tenants.
Mark Schipper details how the 2009 video came to his attention:
In the footage, shot from several stories above the fight, two groups of between 15 and 20 men charge and retreat along the sidewalk in the 4700 block of North Sheridan Road. Their unintelligible shouts continue as one man rips off his shirt and the group passes the entrances to the Alternatives Youth Center, Jesus is the Answer Missionary Church and the Chicago Uptown Ministry.
A woman wearing a lime-green shirt is seen shepherding children into the doorway of the youth center as the maelstrom rolls by, with police sirens briefly drowning out the shouting. A man and woman, along with at least two children, huddle behind a red minivan as the fight moves past them.
The video then captures police officers walking up to the scene as the fight breaks up and the men scatter. The video ends with the sounds of sirens and an officer sprinting after one man who runs east down an alleyway.
Gall said after watching the video that, while troubling, the fight near her youth center seemed to be resolved quickly.
“They did go by very, very fast, and the police were there already,” Gall said. “What we do when fights break out is have staff at the front door and figure out whether young people need to be brought in to safety or to keep the fighting from coming in the agency,” Gall said.
While Gall says there hasn’t been a shooting incident near the youth center in several years, there are groups of young people moving out front every day, and fights do break out from time to time.
“The challenge is — and the community is all working it, the police districts, the division is at Lawrence Avenue — they’re working to keep constant coverage between the two districts, and there’s consistent efforts to fight this.”
Gall says the agency focuses on connecting with youth in the community to provide mentoring and help find them jobs.
Police did not have record of a 911 call nor any arrests due to the incident, according to Officer Thomas Sweeney, a Chicago Police spokesman. He added that that does not mean the event did not happen recently, just that there was no paperwork indicating a call or arrest.
The office of Ald. James Cappleman (46th) did not respond to requests for comment.
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