Man, 78, fatally shot on South Side wasn’t intended target: police

A 78-year-old man was shot and killed Thursday evening while walking home from a store in the West Englewood neighborhood on the South Side.

About 4:45 p.m., Gene Gordon was at the corner of 68th Street and Hermitage Avenue when a group of males in a light-colored car pulled up and someone inside fired shots, hitting him in the head, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

Gordon was taken in to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he died at 5:45 p.m., authorities said. A police source said the man was not the intended target of the shooting.

The shooting happened a few blocks east of his home. He was walking home from a store on Ashland Avenue when he was shot.

A man, who asked not be identified, was outside on his porch when he heard people arguing, and then heard about six gunshots. The 78-year-old fell near a stop sign at the corner.

The resident said it was the third time he has heard shooting at that corner in the last few months. He added that it was unusual for the block.

A young girl played on the sidewalk near the crime scene. She was excited to see a TV news camera and asked if it would be on television. Two blocks of Hermitage on either side of 68th Street had cleared out after the shooting, and residents had gone inside their homes.

James Poole, a community activist with Chicago Against Violence, stood across the street from the corner holding a flag that read “All Lives Matter.”

“These blocks are usually full of people,” he said. “Now there’s no one. It’s sad.”

Area South detectives were conducting a homicide investigation.