Man charged in hit-and-run outside gay bar, Sacred Rose fest preps for its debut and more in your Chicago news roundup

Good afternoon. Here’s the latest news you need to know in Chicago. It’s about a 5-minute read that will brief you on today’s biggest stories.

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Afternoon Edition

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Top story

‘I got something for you.’ Moments later, a car traveling 60 mph hit four people in front of South Shore bar, killing three of them

As a fight broke out in front of Jeffery Pub earlier this month, one of the patrons yelled out, “I got something for you,” and walked up the street.

Minutes later, a car came barreling down the block, reaching around 60 mph as it plowed into a group of people still tussling in front of the bar at 7041 S. Jeffery Blvd. in the early hours of Aug. 14.

Videos show people being hurled through the air. At least one of them landed on the next block. Killed were Jaylen Ausley, 23, Devonta Vivetter, 27, and Donald Huey, 25. A 22-year-old man was seriously injured.

A week later, police say they’ve placed Tavis Dunbar, 34, behind the wheel of the car. What they don’t have yet is a clear motive.

Police do not believe he had been involved in the fight, and they have no evidence the attack was a hate crime directed at people inside the pub, a well-known gay bar in South Shore.

“Why did he do this? We don’t know that,” Chief of Detective Brendan Deenihan told reporters this morning, hours after Dunbar was charged with three counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder.

Later in court, prosecutors laid out more of the case against Dunbar, but key questions remain about what caused him to get into his cousin’s car and floor the gas pedal, never braking as he headed straight toward the people in the street, as the charges allege.

Tom Schuba and Sophie Sherry have more on this tragedy here.

More news you need

1. A 7-year-old boy on his way to get food with his mother and her boyfriend was shot in the arm in Englewood yesterday, just a half-mile from where a 6-year-old girl was shot at a birthday party over the weekend. The boy’s mother, 23, and the boyfriend, 19, were also shot when a car pulled up to theirs and someone inside opened fire, police said.
2. Loved ones, colleagues and former students are mourning the loss of Manuel Sanchez, who recently died at age 94. The son of an immigrant stockyard worker, Sanchez became Chicago’s first Mexican American school principal when he was named head of Komensky School in 1971.
3. Traditional Indigenous foods — like wild rice, bison, fresh vegetables and fruit in the Midwest — are often unavailable or too expensive for Native families in urban areas like Chicago. The recent inflation spike has propelled these foods even further out of reach, the Associated Press reports.
4. Former Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson has begun serving a four-month prison sentence for lying to banking regulators and filing false income tax returns in a case involving a failed bank in Bridgeport. Prison records confirm Thompson is now in custody at a medium-security facility in Oxford, Wis.
5. The CTA is installing more than 1,300 tactile signs across a dozen bus routes as the agency works to improve transportation for people with visual impairments. The pilot, launched today, is designed to make boarding locations for bus stops easier to identify specifically for riders who are blind or have low vision.

A bright one

Sacred Rose: Chicago’s newest music festival is a ‘choose your own’ affair

A new festival comes into full bloom this weekend in Chicago. Sacred Rose, held Aug. 26-28 at SeatGeek Stadium in Bridgeview, promises to be a “choose your own” musical adventure with dedicated stages for fans of jam bands, Americana, psych rock and other experimental styles.

The lineup includes Phil Lesh & Friends, Khruangbin, The War on Drugs, Umphrey’s McGee, STS9, Goose and Joe Russo’s Almost Dead, and Margo Price will also be the artist-at-large appearing in surprise sets throughout the weekend. (Black Pumas were slated to appear as well but recently canceled all tour dates.)

Sacred Rose was the brainchild of Chicago-based festival and event producer Collectiv Presents after witnessing a shift in the audience engagement for North Coast, its perennial Labor Day weekend festival. Though North Coast also started in 2010 as a hippie playground combining funk, America, jam and electronic, it has changed in recent years to focus fully on EDM, which left a big opening for Sacred Rose to fill.

John Lamparski/Getty Images

Collectiv Presents co-founder Michael Berg, not since the one-year Dave Matthews Band Caravan in 2011 has there been a jam band event of this scale in the area.

Held one week before the Sept. 2-4 North Coast weekend at the same venue allows the team to purposefully use the space over two weekends with special build-outs that capitalize on a true festival experience.

“We feel like this is checking a box that hasn’t been checked for the Chicagoland area,” Berg says.

Selena Fragassi has more on the fest and the must-see artists this weekend here.

From the press box

• The first week of the high school football season is finally here, so make sure to check out Michael O’Brien’s new Super 25 rankings of the Chicago area’s best teams entering Week 1.
• The Bears waived receiver Dazz Newsome and four other players to bring their roster down to 80 as the NFL season nears.
• Roquan Smith will play his first preseason snaps of the year and other starters will get reps when the Bears face the Browns in their final exhibition game Saturday, coach Matt Eberflus said today.
• Two days after defensive coordinator Alan Williams said he couldn’t say for sure whether he could trust any of his cornerbacks, Jaylon Johnson defended his work.

Your daily question ☕

If you could reconnect with a CPS teacher who positively impacted you, what would you say to them?

Send us an email at newsletters@suntimes.com and we might feature your answer in the next Afternoon Edition.

Yesterday, we asked you: How do you feel about the early start to the school year for Chicago Public Schools?

Here’s what some of you said…

“This is my daughter’s first year at CPS. She started this early at her other school. I like it so they don’t go so late into June.” — Laura A Dalrymple Kelly

“Great. It keeps them safe and out of harm’s way. Education is the key.” — Omega Thornton

“LOVE IT. It’s going to allow for a better academic flow for the students, especially for those taking a high school placement exam for the following school year. An early start also allows the school year to end a little bit earlier.” — Kloudia Guerrero

“Too early they should have kept it after Labor Day.” — Rolando Bermejo

“I hate it, feel like we lost two weeks of summer.” — Michelle MacKinnon

“Like any change, it will take some getting used to, but when summer comes everyone will be mighty happy.” — Melissa Hake-Schofield

Thanks for reading the Chicago Afternoon Edition. Got a story you think we missed? Email us here.