2 men shot and killed near home in Chicago's Chinatown neighborhood
CHICAGO (CBS) — Two men were shot and killed inside a home in Chicago's Chinatown neighborhood Tuesday night.
Just before 10 p.m., police responded to a call for shots fired in the 2400 block of South Normal Avenue and found two people with gunshot wounds.
One of the victims was found outside the front of the home and was pronounced dead.
A second victim was found in the back of the same house with a gunshot wound to the shoulder. That person was taken to a local hospital where they later died.
The Cook County Medical Examiner's office identified the victims as 33-year-old Jianru Zheng and 32-year-old Faliang Gao.
Police believe the shooting took place inside the home.
A neighbor told CBS News Chicago she heard the shooting.
"I live on the first floor and I heard the shooting sound and I saw like fireworks, or something, and I heard the ambulance and the police car coming," A neighbor said.
No arrests have been made. Police are investigating.
Community says enough is enough
While the circumstances into the double murder remained under investigation a night later, the community said enough is enough.
Many people were too scared to talk on camera Wednesday night—and that is part of why community activists say the double murder should be the wake-up call for a profoundly troubling trend.
"People are very petrified. They're apprehensive," said community activist Raul Montes Jr. "They're scared."
Montes said the worry is heightened not only because of the double murder, but also because Chinatown appears to be seeing an uptick in crime.
"It's not at the Red Line no more. It somewhere it's in a residential block," he said, "and people are alarmed. They don't know what the motive is. They don't know who's doing this and why."
Police have not said whether the gruesome crime was targeted or random. It is also unknown if the two men knew each other.
"You can see me in the rain. I'm here because I'm raising awareness," Montes said. "Chinatown has been under attack for the past three, four years."
When CBS News Chicago examined the numbers, it turned out shootings are down in the area. There were 174 from Jan. 1 through Nov. 10, 2023, while there have been 118 in the same period this year.
Yet by comparison to the past four years, other crimes have spiked significantly. Robberies are up 55%, thefts jumped 71%, and car thefts spiked 122% from 2020 to 2024.
"We're here basically asking for federal funding to help, you know, violence prevention initiatives to stop this from happening," Montes said. "We don't want this to happen again. We want to catch who's responsible for this crime."
Montes and others are offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the double murder. They hope the reward will be enough to bring the shooter to justice.
Chicago Police are investigating.