Woman In Vehicle Shot On Lake Shore Drive In Chicago Loop
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A woman was almost killed in a shooting in broad daylight Sunday on Chicago's iconic Lake Shore Drive – right downtown.
Late Sunday, police were still looking for the gunman, who pulled up beside the car the woman was inside and opened fire. Traffic came to a standstill afterward.
As CBS 2's Steven Graves reported, this was one of many shootings this year on Lake Shore Drive. The year 2020 has seen more shootings on Lake Shore Drive than last year.
But most were not as brazen as this one.
The shooting aftermath became the spectacle of bikers and drivers who were forced to take a detour.
NB LSD closed at Jackson after 19 y/o woman is shot in the head while in a car.
— Steven Graves (@StevenGravesTV) October 11, 2020
Police think someone fired from another vehicle. Officers found the victim injured in her car outside Navy Pier. @cbschicago pic.twitter.com/GoB06aPi3C
After the shooting around 1:20 p.m. Sunday, Lake Shore Drive near Monroe Harbor was shut down as police investigated.
Police said the 19-year-old woman was inside a white Dodge Caliber headed north on Lake Shore Drive at Jackson Drive on the edge of Grant Park.
The car was stopped at Jackson, where there is a traffic light, when another vehicle pulled up alongside it. There was some kind of exchange of words between the occupants of the cars, and then someone in the rear of the second vehicle fired shots into the Dodge Caliber, police said.
The victims then fled north on Lake Shore Drive – eventually exiting and stopping in the 600 block of East Grand Avenue near the mouth of the now-closed Navy Pier. It was there that police and paramedics were called to the scene.
Police found that the woman had been shot in the head. An officer immediately took out his first aid kit to treat the wound and stem the bleeding, police said.
Meanwhile, security shut down the roads as paramedics took the woman to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where she was in critical condition.
This incident closely mirrors another shooting on Lake Shore Drive back in March. In that incident, someone fired from a sedan that pulled up to a man's car near Soldier Field.
Bullets pierced the frame, and the victim was hit in the face.
CBS 2 analyzed shooting data from the central, 11-mile stretch of Lake Shore Drive. So far this year, the CPD reports eight incidents that happened on the busy roadway, compared to only two last year.
Most of the shootings happened in the early-morning hours, after midnight. That is in stark contrast to this near-fatal shooting, which remained unsolved late Sunday.
Police believe the shooting was not random and there was some type of connection between the people in the two cars.
Following the shooting, northbound traffic on Lake Shore Drive was closed between Balbo and Randolph drives. Northbound traffic was being diverted onto Columbus Drive up to Lower Wacker Drive, where traffic was allowed to reenter Lake Shore Drive.