Rapper Lil Reese, 2 other men shot in gunfight at Near North parking garage

Rapper Lil Reese and two others were shot during a gunfight Saturday at a parking garage on a busy Near North Side block.

The men were “all shooting at each other” about 9:50 a.m. inside a parking garage in the first block of West Grand Avenue, according to Chicago police.

Two men, 27 and 28 years old, were taken with gunshot wounds to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, police said. The younger man was struck multiple times and was in critical condition, while the older man was grazed in the eye and in fair condition.

A police source said one of the wounded men was rapper Lil Reese, whose legal name is Tavares Taylor.

A third man, 20, was taken to Stroger Hospital in good condition with two gunshot wounds to his knee, police said.

No one was in custody Saturday afternoon.

Saturday’s attack marked the second time Taylor has been shot since November 2019, when he suffered a neck wound in south suburban Country Club Hills.

“I got hella luck,” the rapper wrote in an Instagram post days after that shooting.

Investigators at the time said they’d identified a “person of interest” in that case, but no arrests were ever announced.

Taylor, a frequent collaborator with Chief Keef, gained notoriety after the 2012 murder of fellow rapper Joseph Coleman, also known as Lil Jojo, who openly feuded with Taylor and his associates and was shot to death hours after posting a video to YouTube showing him taunting Taylor in the street.

A trio of witnesses, who asked not to be named, described what they called a “weird” series of events in the garage connected to a luxury high-rise condominium in a bustling area.

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

The group said they were on their way to their vehicle when they heard what sounded like a car crash. The group also heard two “pops,” which turned out to be gunshots.

When the group drove their car to the third floor of the garage, they saw a vehicle crashed into a cement barrier with its airbags deployed. The witnesses said it was unclear what led up to the crash.

“It didn’t make any sense the way it was crashed,” said one person.

When the group heard another gunshot and someone yell, “Shots fired!” they reversed their car and drove away.

The witnesses told investigators what they saw. Officers told the witnesses that there were four suspects.

Police blocked traffic on Grand Avenue between Dearborn Street and Wabash Avenue for the investigation, and pedestrians were blocked from walking on the normally busy stretch of Grand between State Street and Dearborn.

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

CTA Red Line trains bypassed the Grand station, causing confusion for some tourists who were left to gawk at the rain-soaked crime scene.

Corey Kaplan, the owner of Corey’s NYC Bagel Deli in River North and Goose Island, said he had just gotten back from a delivery when he saw the first squad car pull up to the garage.

“It’s absolutely mind blowing... and the reason why I say that is because we really try to think that River North is safe, and especially on a Saturday morning at 10 a.m. There’s a lot of kids and families that are walking around, they’re coming out for their normal Saturday morning bagel,” he said.

Kaplan said he had never seen anything like Saturday’s incident in his 10 years in the neighborhood.

“It’s really bizarre and mind-blowing that this could happen,” he said. “But what I think what is safe to say is that no place is safe anymore. It’s really scary.”

At least 19 other people have been shot across the city in separate attacks since Friday evening.