A quiet stretch of Hyde Park turned into a crime scene Thursday evening when Chicago police found two people shot inside a crashed car near the University of Chicago campus.
Officers responding to the 5900 block of East Ellis Avenue discovered a 24-year-old man and a 27-year-old woman inside a dark sedan that had jumped the east curb, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. The vehicle showed heavy front-end damage, airbags had deployed and both front doors were standing open when police arrived.
Each victim had suffered a single gunshot wound to the head, police said. Both were rushed to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where they were later pronounced dead, according to the Sun-Times. About a dozen officers worked the scene, stringing up red tape while detectives combed the area for evidence.
Taken to UChicago Medicine
The victims were transported to the University of Chicago Medical Center in Hyde Park, a certified Level 1 adult trauma center that also operates an aeromedical network for severely injured patients, according to UChicago Medicine. The hospital’s main Hyde Park campus is located at 5841 S. Maryland Ave.
Neighborhood context
The double killing follows another burst of gun violence in the neighborhood this spring. In May, a pre-dawn shooting that left a 31-year-old man critically wounded rattled residents and drew a heavy police response along Cornell Avenue.
Citywide, shootings and homicides have edged up in parts of Chicago this year, according to recent reporting from WTTW.
Chicago police say the Hyde Park killings remain under active investigation. As of Thursday night, no arrests had been announced and detectives were still processing the scene, the Sun-Times reported. The names of the victims have not yet been released, pending notification of their families.
