UPDATE: PEACE EFFORTS 'HIJACKED' BY DRUG DEALERS NEAR SLAYINGS; VICTIMS IDENTIFIED
WEST LOOP — Mayor Rahm Emanuel decried the violence that left seven people dead a series of South Shore shootings Thursday.
Emanuel, speaking at an unrelated event in the West Loop designed to tout the start of construction on a new office building, said the two incidents represented a "level of evil and depravity."
Most recently, at 11:02 p.m., several people were in a van driving in the 7000 block of South South Shore Drive when someone in a black Jeep pulled alongside them and fired shots, police said. The van crashed into a pole.
A 23-year-old woman, who was in the front passenger seat, was shot in the side of her head and a 27-year-old man, who was in the back seat, was hit in the side of his body, police said. The two were pronounced dead at the scene.
At 3:51 p.m. Thursday, at least one man walked up to a restaurant in the 2700 block of East 75th Street and fired shots, police said. Two men were found dead inside the restaurant and a third was found dead outside. Another man was found dead nearby in the 7500 block of South Coles Avenue.
The Tribune reported that two of the victims were brothers whose mother worked at the restaurant, Nadia Fish and Chicken. The mother of the slain men heard the shots that killed her sons, the paper reported.
A pregnant woman was found shot to death just blocks away earlier in the day.
Emanuel said he had been briefed Friday morning by the Chicago Police Department's command staff about progress made in the investigation into the crimes.
The only place for those who committed these crimes is behind bars, Emanuel said.
"There is only one place for them," Emanuel said. "They do not belong in our society. They do not belong in our city."
