Four people were fatally shot on Chicago’s South Side Friday night in a chaotic attack that multiple neighbors recounted as what sounded like "machine gun" fire.
The shooting deaths occurred in the city’s Brighton Park neighborhood in the 4700 block of South Fairfield Avenue around 8:35 p.m., police said. Three males and one female were pronounced dead at the scene inside of a vehicle, police said.
Officers were searching for a white SUV in connection to the shootings, CPD spokesman Anthony Guglielmi tweeted.
Maria Mier said she lives in the area where the shooting occurred. She said she heard what sounded like "machine gun" fire and climbed into her bathtub to take cover.
Asked how many rounds she heard fired, she replied "more than 30, I think" and added that it was "really, really noisy."
Chicago police Sgt. Al Stinites said at the scene he had no further information on the victims or what kind of weapon was used.
Unconfirmed police scanner exchanges mentioned that a rifle may have been used.
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“The Chicago police have increased significantly the number of patrols in the ninth district tonight in this area,” he said.
Mier said she hears gunfire in the area sometimes but nothing like Friday night's shootings. But Marina Carbajao, a college student who said her parents live down the street, said the neighborhood was "risky."
“It’s not a surprise, it kind of happens often here, honestly, it’s not the safest neighborhood,” she said. “It just kind of concerns me cause I leave my parents here and I go off to college.”
She and mother were headed back from gas station and pulled up to a red light when the shooting started, she said. The pair heard more than a dozen "repetitive" shots that sounded like "a machine gun," she said.
“I was with my mom in the car and I just ducked down and I jumped over to her seat,” she said. “I tried to cover her—cause you know she was freaking out—and I just wanna save my mom, you know—priorities.”
"I was like ‘just duck down and hopefully nothing happens to us,’” she recalled telling her mother.
Area Central detectives were investigating. No other details were immediately available.
