Four people were shot in a drive-by shooting in the Uptown neighborhood this evening.
The victims were shot about 6 p.m. at Sheridan Road and Wilson Avenue, said Chicago Police Department News Affairs [...].
The four victims were on the street when someone began firing from a small, red car heading east on Wilson that then turned south on Sheridan, police said.
The shooting happened almost directly underneath one of those famous POD cameras. We aren't talking at the end of the block or around the corner, we're talking about right on top of it. So there must be almost live, crystal clear footage of the entire event, right? Subjects identified? Prosecution imminent?
Well, no. The camera is down. Nonfunctional. No footage to be had. The trouble is, this isn't a recent problem. The camera has been down for quite some time. And evidently, the criminals know it because they shot a few other people within sight of this camera before:
This is at least the third shooting incident with multiple victims near Sheridan Road and Wilson Avenue since Nov. 22, when a 15- and 17-year-old boy were shot about 9:30 p.m.
About 5 p.m. on Dec. 2, a woman was shot in the thigh while she was working in a nearby store when someone opened fire at another man, also injured, in a suspected gang-related shooting.
A 20-year-old man was also shot killed nearby, on the 4700 block of Winthrop Avenue, on Dec. 4.
You'd be mistaken.
And as a side note, it's nice to see that the entire POD camera debacle is progressing along exactly as predicted here by the readers. The hiring slowdown, the uptick in retirees, and the complete lack of a citywide unit to respond to situations exactly like this....combine this with the "illusion" of police presence via the POD cameras that feed tens of thousands of hours of footage into servers that no one is watching, it is a recipe for disaster.