Police are searching for two gunmen in connection with separate robberies and home invasions that happened 15 minutes apart, including one that sparked a shooting early Thursday on the Southwest Side.
At 1:40 a.m., a 17-year-old was getting out of a car in the 3300 block of West 59th Place in the Chicago Lawn neighborhood when two assailants got out of a black SUV that pulled up behind him and demanded his property before forcing him into a home and robbed him, police said. The robbers fled in the same SUV.
Fifteen minutes earlier, a 20-year-old man and his 56-year-old mother were in a vehicle in the 6200 block of South Kolin Avenue in the West Lawn neighborhood when they were confronted by two gunmen who took their property and followed them into a home.
A friend of their family who lives across the street from the Kolin Avenue home said a car drove down the one-way street the wrong way before he forced the victims, who were on their way to work, into their home at gunpoint. The neighbor, who declined to give his name citing safety concerns, said the woman offered everything in her pockets to prevent the robbers from entering.
Once inside, they robbed them again, prompting an exchange of gunfire between the victims and the attackers, who eventually got away, police said.
The neighbor said the family called off work Thursday and was recovering. A front window of their home is marked with what appears to be a bullet hole.
“She said she was praying right before this [robbery]”, said the neighbor. “She’s really religious, so she’s fine.”
The neighbor urged Mayor Brandon Johnson to make good on his campaign promise to hire new detectives to help solve crimes like this one. The city has reported one budget deficit of almost 1 billion dollars which has stopped hiring in almost all departments.
“1000 detectives, where are they?” said the neighbor, pointing up and down the street.
No one was injured and a gun was recovered from the scene on Kolin Avenue.
A police spokesman said it was not clear whether the two attacks were related and that no arrests had been made.
Area One detectives are investigating.