An argument inside the St. Sabina Church gym during a basketball tournament led to a shooting that wounded three men Sunday afternoon outside the well-known Auburn Gresham church, police sources said.
All three of the victims were attending the basketball tournament when an argument broke out and a crowd made its way outside around 4:10 p.m., according to a police report obtained by the Tribune.
A man described as “heavy-set” and wearing all black began to fire into the crowd, the report stated. Someone else, wearing a black puffer coat and grey sweatpants, started firing back at the same time while a third person drove by in a Mazda SUV, also firing, according to the police report.
Paramedics found one of the men shot inside the gym, located at 1210 W. 78th Pl., a second about a block to the east and a third at a nearby Walgreens, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation. Two cars crashed while trying to flee the scene on the 7700 block of South Racine Avenue, the source said, and Gresham (6th) district police recovered around ten shell casings from the scene.
The victims were all stable Sunday evening, according to a Chicago Police Department spokesperson. A 30-year-old man was taken to the University of Chicago Hospital with a shoulder wound, a 33-year-old man was taken to Holy Cross Hospital with a gunshot wound to the foot, and a third, 38-year-old man was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn with a gunshot wound to the hip. Per the police report, none of the victims were from Auburn Gresham.
No one was in custody Sunday evening and Wentworth area detectives were reviewing the shooting.
This is the second multi-victim shooting to occur outside the church, a longtime center of activism against gun violence, this year. In May, seven teenagers were wounded in a drive-by shooting that targeted the affiliated school’s graduation party. Fr. Michael Pfleger, the church’s longtime senior pastor, offered a $10,000 reward for anyone who could help apprehend the aggressors in the shooting.
No one is in custody for that shooting, police said Sunday. Church representatives didn’t immediately return requests for comment.