CHICAGO — There’s one block on the city’s north side where 16 people have been shot and another four murdered in the past two years. The same block was the site of an untold number of shootouts and shooting attempts that ended without injuries.
Can you guess which block we are talking about? It is located in Rogers Park, 1600 block of West Howard, immediately west of the Howard CTA station.
As surprising as that may be, there’s also this: No one has ever been charged with these shootings and murders, crimes that local residents and store owners blame on a thriving, 24-hour drug market.
A few weeks ago, after the latest triple shooting in the neighborhood, we asked the local councilor what she and the police were doing about it. Nobody from Ald. Maria Hadden’s office took the time to contact us.
However, there is some progress to report. Prosecutors charged a man last month with shooting into a crowd of people in the street, a crime that was captured on video and fortunately resulted in no injuries.
The incident took place around 3:34 am on October 6. Video shows two groups standing on opposite sides of Howard Street: three people on the north side and a larger group on the south side.
The three walk across the street, with one of the men gesturing broadly towards the other group. As he approaches, he appears to confront a member of the opposing party. Then everything goes sideways.
The man he appeared to be confronting pulls out a gun and starts shooting. The crowd disperses as more shots are fired. The man, who had made wild gestures while crossing the street, fell to the sidewalk while trying to flee. He gets up, stumbles and falls again as the gunman runs away, heading north towards Paulina.
Watch:
Now prosecutors say they know who fired the shots in that video: 39-year-old Brandon Henry.
In a complaint, prosecutors said Henry fired several rounds “early that morning” toward a group of individuals on a public road. They charged him with aggravated use of a firearm and Judge William Fahy ordered him jailed pending trial.
Court records show police also arrested Henry on Oct. 7, the day after the incident in which he allegedly fired shots. That arrest also occurred in the 1600 block of West Howard.
According to his arrest report, a Chicago Police tactical team saw Henry conducting suspected personal drug transactions. They said he had suspected cracked bags in his waistband, plastic containers of cannabis and suspected psilocybin-laced gummies in his bag. The charges are still pending.
The most recent shooting that resulted in injuries on site occurred on October 23. One man was killed and two others were injured. Like almost all other crimes, it was captured on video (discretion advised). Another murder, actually an execution, took place in the middle of the lanes on June 25, just eight days after another murder took place at the corner where Howard crosses Paulina.
But despite everything that happened on that block, Henry is the only person we could find accused of firing a gun in the street. None of the murders have been charged. None of the non-fatal shootings either.
The closest we came to being charged in any of the shootings was on November 16 last year. A 30-year-old man was shot and killed during an altercation with the gunman, authorities said, who remained at the scene and spoke freely with police. Prosecutors declined to charge him in the shooting, saying he acted in self-defense. But they did charge him with illegal firearms possession.
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