2 men hurt after shots fired into Taco Bell Cantina restaurant in Chicago's Loop
CHICAGO (CBS) — A woman was forced to hide under a table when a shooting broke out inside a Taco Bell Cantina in the Loop early Saturday morning.
Two men were shot inside that restaurant in the 100 block of North Wabash Avenue just before 12:30 a.m., police say.
"I left my cousin's place maybe, so I'd imagine it was just before midnight or right around then," said the woman who was visiting Chicago but did not wish to be identified. "Stopped in to grab a snack. It was late, was a little hungry. I was just inside, and all of a sudden, there were a bunch of gunshots, a bunch of people screaming to get down. And it went on for a little while. It felt like it was about 15 or 20 seconds. It wasn't just a couple shots."
Police say someone outside fired shots into the restaurant.
"I was next to a couple where the guy was holding his girlfriend and kind of shielding her body," the woman said.
As she hid under the table, her mind began to wander.
"Just like waiting to see if somebody was coming in, I think, was really the scary part after the gunfire died down. Once it was sort of clear that they weren't and nobody was coming back, it was kind of like, how long do you hide inside of the building before finding some exit?"
Two of the men inside the building were shot.
"Eventually, I hear somebody screaming, 'I got hit. I got hit,' and actually running out into the street kind of shuffling out asking someone to call 911," the woman said.
A 31-year-old man was shot in the leg, and a 40-year-old man was shot in the shoulder.
"After maybe a minute or two, the restaurant workers were like, 'Everybody, get out the back," the witness said. "They opened up the back and ran us out the back of the building.
She was able to escape out the back along with the others.
"I woke up in the morning like, 'Did that really happen?' Right? And just coming back to see the evidence of it, I guess, and then giving myself a chance to process it a little bit," she said.
The two men injured in the shooting were both hospitalized and are expected to recover.
Chicago Police had not provided a description of the suspect or suspects Saturday afternoon and said no one was in custody.
Less than 12 hours after the shooting, it was business as usual inside the restaurant. The restaurant was also the location of a previous shooting in which two innocent men were struck by gunfire in 2022. One of those victims was a stagehand of the then-performance of "Moulin Rouge! The Musical" at the Nederlander Theatre down the street. That incident caused one of the shows to be canceled.