Man killed in Lincoln Square — third neighborhood shooting since Friday

A man was shot and killed Wednesday morning in the Lincoln Square neighborhood, which has seen three shootings since Friday.

Rae Park, 59, was outside around 7 a.m. when a gunman got out of a vehicle and opened fire in the 2600 block of West Catalpa Avenue, according to Chicago police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

Park was taken to Saint Francis Hospital in Evanston and pronounced dead, police said. He died from a gunshot wound to his chest, an autopsy found.

Police reported no arrests.

The recent spate of shootings in the Lincoln Square area have prompted police to increase patrols along the Western and Lawrence avenue corridors.

Early Monday, two teenagers were shot and wounded while driving in the 4600 block of North Western Avenue, police said. The shooting stemmed from an argument that started two blocks north, Ald. Matt Martin (47th) said in a statement.

Police don’t believe that shooting was connected to another shooting Friday evening in the same block, Martin said. In that shooting, a 26-year-old man was struck in the torso and dropped off at Swedish Hospital in fair condition, police said.

In response to the shootings, police in the 19th and 20th police districts will continue joint traffic missions along Western and Lawrence avenues, Martin said.

The 19th District, which stretches south of Lawrence Avenue, has seen an 18% increase in shootings so far this year, from 22 to 26 through Nov. 28, according to police statistics. Murders in the district have fallen from four to three in the same period.

The 20th District, which covers the area north of Lawrence to Peterson, has seen a 10% drop in shootings, from 10 to nine, and an even larger decrease in murders, from seven to two, according to police figures.

Earlier Wednesday, the Chicago Police Department released citywide crime numbers that show a 3% increase in murders and 8% increase in shooting victims. So far this year, 4,077 people have been shot in Chicago — which is the same number of people shot in all of 2020. Police had logged 2,403 shooting victims at this point in 2019.