Man killed, 6 wounded in shooting at Bronzeville barbecue

SUN-TIMES MEDIA WIRE - A man was killed and six people, five of who are women, were wounded in a shooting Tuesday night in the South Side Bronzeville neighborhood just a few blocks from Chicago Police Department headquarters.

The victims were standing on the sidewalk during a barbecue at 10:37 p.m. in the first block of East 37th Place when a group of males walked up and fired shots from the corner of the block, according to Chicago Police spokeswoman Officer Brandi Wright.

Alfred Mitchell Jr., 28, was shot in the back, and was pronounced dead at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office said. He lived in the Fuller Park neighborhood on the South Side.

A 21-year-old woman shot in the left knee, a 28-year-old woman shot in the left leg, and a 45-year-old woman shot in the right buttock were all taken to Stroger Hospital, police said. A 46-year-old woman shot in the right leg and a 27-year-old woman shot in the left leg were taken to Mercy Hospital. All of their conditions were stabilized.

A seventh victim, a 30-year-old man, suffered gunshot wounds to the right leg and later showed up at Northwestern Memorial, police said. His condition was also stabilized.

Police were looking into whether a 20-year-old man, who has a history with police and was wounded in a 2011 shooting, was the intended target, Wright said. Investigators were also trying to determine whether an earlier verbal dispute in a park led to the shooting.

No one was in custody as of Wednesday afternoon as Area Central detectives investigate.

The mass shooting happened about two blocks from Chicago Police headquarters at 3510 S. Michigan Ave.

Sixty-year-old Floyd Atkins, who grew up in the neighborhood,  told the CHicago Sun-Times: “The city needs to get a handle on its guns and cut down on them.”