Dr. Brad Schubert was on the Eisenhower Expressway, driving to the western suburbs, when he heard a “plunk, plunk, plunk” and realized someone shot at his Mercedes sedan.
The Illinois State Police believe someone fired a pellet gun at the surgeon’s passenger-side window on the outbound expressway near 17th Avenue in rush-hour traffic around 6:25 p.m., putting three holes in the glass.
It was one of at least three pellet-gun shootings within a 24-hour period on the Eisenhower last October.
Expressway shootings have become a major problem. They not only threaten the lives of motorists, but they have also caused frequent traffic jams as police shut down the expressways to investigate them.
In 2010, there were six shootings on Chicago-area expressways.
Last year, there were 18.
And so far this year, there have been 25.
Dr. Brad Schubert’s Mercedes was shot in October 2014 on the Eisenhower Expressway. | Provided photo
Schubert said he was lucky the shooter didn’t fire a handgun. Bullets would have gone through the window and could have hit him, he said.
He remembers a driver in the center, outbound lane of the Eisenhower pulling next to him and firing at his car, which was in the left lane.
On the day of the shooting, he was headed to an after-work event at a west suburban hospital. He normally commutes home to Oak Brook.
“I am not really excited about taking the Ike anymore,” Schubert said.
In the past two years, one person was killed and 23 people were wounded in the shootings, according to the Illinois State Police.
Most of the shootings don’t appear to stem from road rage, said Sgt. Clare Pfotenhauer, a spokeswoman for the state police. Usually, they involve gang conflicts, she said.
A law enforcement source said gang members follow their targets onto the Dan Ryan and Eisenhower expressways because they believe it’s easier to get away from police on the expressways than on neighborhood streets.
Some of the shootings have been particularly outrageous.
In May, for instance, a car and an ambulance carrying a patient were both struck when someone opened fire on the Dan Ryan near 31st Street. No one was hit.
Schubert, who seems to have been a target of random violence, said he’s unaware of anyone getting arrested for shooting at his car.
The shooters rarely get caught, although in April prosecutors charged three men in a September 2012 shooting on the Dan Ryan that killed Larry Porter, 25. Porter, who was driving a Jeep Grand Cherokee, was shot in the head and a passenger was wounded.
Garrett Glover, 27, Patrick Calvin, 21, and Tyrone Mixon, 23, are awaiting trial on charges of first-degree murder. They fired at the Jeep from the open side door of a van, prosecutors said.
Patrick Calvin (left) ane Garrett Glover | Police mugshots
Glover allegedly told a girlfriend they shot the wrong person. The men intended to kill someone in the backseat, prosecutors said. Police said they found a Glock handgun that matched the shell casings at the Dan Ryan murder scene. The Glock was recovered from a yard where Calvin had tossed it during a police chase, authorities said.
Mixon is in prison in Wisconsin on an unrelated fraud conviction. Calvin and Glover are in the Cook County Jail.
To combat such shootings, the Illinois State Police last year launched periodic missions that flood Chicago’s expressways with troopers and Cook County sheriff’s police officers.
The missions — code-named Operation Ryan’s Hope — began in April 2014 because of a rise in shootings on the Dan Ryan between 95th Street to Hubbard’s Cave. Since then, they have been expanded to every Chicago expressway.
“The goal of the operation is to aggressively patrol the roadways to help ensure the safety of motorists and improve overall roadway safety with the focus on seat belts, distracted driving, speeding and driving under the influence,” Pfotenhauer said.
So far, eight 24-hour details have been conducted on the expressways, each involving more than 25 troopers as well as sheriff’s officers.
More than 1,750 citations have been written over the past two years.
This year, 14 people were arrested on warrants, two stolen vehicles were stopped and three weapons were recovered, Pfotenhauer said.
But the expressway gun violence has continued to soar.
“If more witnesses came forward and gave information on what they see, this would help significantly in the investigations of these shootings,” Pfotenhauer said.
Since his car was shot, Schubert said he’s been on the Eisenhower when other people’s cars were hit with gunfire.
“I have taken alternate routes to get home,” he said. “It doubles my travel time.”
The vascular surgeon said he’s now extremely cautious of his surroundings and gives himself space to escape if he thinks someone is trying to corner him.
“It’s totally random,” Schubert said. “You don’t know who they are going to get next. I can see if it was a gang turf war or road rage, but this is on the commute coming home from work.”
“This is pretty serious.”
