Little Village community members, police gather after outbreak of violence

Little Village community members joined a Chicago police outdoor roll call Friday after a recent outbreak of shootings in the Southwest Side neighborhood.

Over the past two weeks, at least nine people have been wounded in gun violence incidents in the area, alarming residents and law enforcement alike.

An “uptick in gang violence” is to blame for the wave of shootings, Police Captain Gilberto Calderon told residents and 10th District officers.

Among those in the crowd were friends and family members of Frank Aguilar, 32, who was shot and killed Tuesday as he was headed home from a Misericordia nursing home.

He was walking about 11:30 p.m. in the 3700 block of West 32nd Street when someone in a gray SUV drove by and opened fire, police said.

Aguilar was shot in the chest and taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries, police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office said. He lived in West Englewood.

“Frankie was such an amazing person,” his uncle, Joshua Alcazar, said at a vigil Friday night. “He was a caring man. He would give you the clothes off his back.”

Alcazar said his nephew worked at Misericordia for two years despite having better offers from other hospitals.

“He decided to stay there because of the patients, not because of financial gain,” he said.

Aguilar was not affiliated with any gangs, police said.

Police are hoping the community can come together and help investigators make an arrest in the case, like it did after a 7-year-old girl was shot on Halloween while trick-or-treating on 26th Street.

A 15-year-old boy was taken into custody and charged in that shooting thanks in part to an outpouring of tips from the neighborhood, police said.

Calderon said officers would saturate the area over the coming days “to make sure that this violence stops.”

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