HYDE PARK — Wentworth Police District Cmdr. Crystal King-Smith called a Dec. 2 shooting in Cornell Park an execution at a Monday night meeting in Hyde Park.
King-Smith said Monday that police believe the Dec. 2 murder of Curtis Nowells was coordinated and likely prompted by infighting within a group using the park, 5473 S. Cornell Ave., as drop spot for drugs.
“It wasn’t a gang shooting per se in the park,” King-Smith said.
She said he was "executed" and police believe he was set up to be killed in the park by people he knew.
Nowells, 33, was shot at 2:50 p.m. in the park by a man in a ski mask, who walked within 15 feet of Nowells, shooting him in his head with a black handgun and killing him, before running away to a waiting car.
King-Smith said Nowells, who lived in South Shore, had been arrested before. She declined to say specific charges, but said he was arrested for drugs previously and police believe he had been shot before.
Neighbors pressed King-Smith give more attention to the park, which has had problems in the past with drug sales because of discreet access to the pocket park through an alley.
“This should be well known,” said Howard Niden, a resident of the block who’s brought up problems in the park at CAPS meetings.
He asked police to more frequently patrol the area around the park.
King-Smith said the police’s gang and drug saturation team did monitor the park after the shooting and found no other drug activity.
People questioned why drugs were being sold in the park when so few people in Hyde Park buy drugs, something King-Smith disputed.
“You’re just as infiltrated with drugs as Englewood, you just can’t see it because you’re not a part of that world,” King-Smith said.
She said arrests for violent crime in the 5th Ward, which includes Hyde Park south of 53rd Street and South Shore, were static between January and Dec. 12 compared to the same period last year. She said there were the same number of assaults and batteries as last year and arrests for drugs were down to three from eight last year.
King-Smith said burglary trends in the ward are a greater concern, with 95 burglaries this year compared to 53 last year, driven largely by an increase in break-ins in Hyde Park.
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