A man was killed and a woman injured early Sunday when a birthday party attended by more than 100 people was interrupted by gunfire in the University Village neighborhood on the Near West Side.
About 2:20 a.m., 43-year-old Everick Coleman and a 40-year-old woman were at the party outside in the 1300 block of West Hastings when someone opened fire, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
Coleman, of the 2400 block of West Madison, was shot in the head and chest, and was pronounced dead at the scene at 2:42 a.m., authorities said.
The woman suffered a gunshot wound to the left arm and back and was taken to Stroger Hospital, where her condition was stabilized.
More than a dozen police officers, some armed with assault rifles, guarded the scene early Sunday on Hastings, which was partially blocked off between Throop and Loomis. A large pool of blood could be seen in the street, surrounded by bottles, cups and other remnants of the party that took place before shots rang out.
Dana Fitch, 33, said she had just stepped away from the party and into another friend’s house on the block when she heard more than 20 shots ring out. When she looked outside, people were running and screaming.
“Everybody was just mingling and talking. It was fun. I haven’t had a good time like this in so long,” said Fitch, who grew up in the neighborhood, but now lives in Aurora. “It was just too good.”
She said she had never seen anything like this before.
“This was a random shooting — they just fired into the crowd — and they took this innocent man’s life,” she said.
As Fitch stood outside the crime scene, she looked at the man’s Facebook page and realized that Sunday was his birthday, too.
“That’s messed up,” she said as she looked through the birthday wishes posted to his Facebook wall.
“He’s got kids. Don’t nobody deserve that.”
