An unidentified man was shot multiple times outside of a convenience store in Chicago on Thursday, allegedly while streaming live on Facebook. Graphic footage, an alleged rip of the man's Facebook stream, started making the rounds on Thursday night and appears to show the man being shot by an unknown assailant multiple times before a witness is overheard offering to take the victim to a nearby hospital. The authenticity of the video has not been confirmed by investigators, according to a report from the New York Daily News.
A spokesperson for the Chicago Police Department, speaking with the Daily News, confirmed that a 31-year-old man was shot at the same intersection shown in the footage just before 5 p.m. on Thursday. According to the department's spokesperson, they "could not comment" on the alleged footage of the shooting. That victim reportedly sustained multiple gunshot wounds to the face and groin, according toABC 7, and is currently listed in critical condition at Mount Sinai.
In the alleged video of the shooting, the victim is seen standing outside the convenience store, seemingly joking that he needs somewhere to "duck and hide for cover." As many as 16 shots are heard, as witnesses emit audible gasps. The suspect in the confirmed shooting at the same intersection, which investigators have not linked to the footage being shared across social media, reportedly approached the victim on foot but escaped in a car.
"We have to go back decades to find jumps of this magnitude in year-to-year comparisons," Arthur Lurigio, a Loyal University Chicago criminal justice professor, told the Chicago Tribune on Thursday of the city's shootings in the first three months of 2016. "We're on our way to 500 homicides again. We're going backward." Though some officers have apparently argued that a recently instated department policy requiring thorough reports for every street stop have caused a spike in regional violence, many others—including the American Civil Liberties Union—argue that there's currently no evidence that would suggest such an impact.
