A 67-year-old woman was shot in the leg early Friday morning on a Roseland block that has seen gun violence before, according to Chicago police. The shooting happened around 5:45 a.m. on the 9300 block of South Stewart Avenue, where the woman noticed two people near a parked car moments before they opened fire.
Police say the two people struck the woman in the leg, and she was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where her condition was stabilized, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Area 2 detectives are investigating the shooting, per the same report. Those detectives work out of the 5th District station at 727 East 111th Street, which leads felony investigations across four Far South Side police districts, according to the City of Chicago.
No arrests had been announced, and it remains unclear whether the woman was specifically targeted or caught in crossfire near the parked vehicle. The identities and motive of the two people police say opened fire have not been disclosed.
A Block With a History of Gunfire
This is not the first shooting on the 9300 block of South Stewart Avenue. On October 1, 2024, three men were shot inside a vehicle on the same block around 10 p.m., with a 24-year-old hospitalized in serious condition with a leg wound alongside two 28-year-old victims, also treated at Advocate Christ Medical Center, according to CBS News. The block's troubles stretch back further still — in June 2013, two 19-year-olds were shot there during a Father's Day weekend violent spree that left multiple people wounded across Chicago, according to Hello Beautiful.
Advocate Christ Medical Center, in suburban Oak Lawn, operates the busiest Level I trauma center in Illinois, treating more than 100,000 emergency department patients a year with trauma surgery teams on site around the clock, according to Advocate Health Care. Illinois Department of Public Health standards require that Level I designation — held by fewer than 8% of hospitals nationwide — to maintain on-site trauma surgeons and dedicated critical care units at all hours, per the same source. That standard is why gunshot victims from Chicago's Far South Side, including Roseland, are routinely routed across municipal lines to the suburban facility.
Early Morning Shooting Bucks Neighborhood Pattern
Friday's shooting occurred well before dawn, a time slot that runs counter to Roseland's usual rhythms. Incident data compiled by Safemap shows the neighborhood averages roughly 123 reported crime incidents per month, with activity peaking around 3 p.m. and early mornings near 5 a.m. recording the lowest average incident levels.
The shooting comes even as Chicago has seen broad declines in violent crime. A January 2026 study by NORC at the University of Chicago found the city recorded a 29% drop in homicides in 2025 compared to 2024, pushing the annual homicide rate to its lowest level since 1965. A Council on Criminal Justice report published in July found that 10 of 13 tracked crime categories in Chicago fell during the first half of 2026 compared to the same period in 2025, though motor vehicle theft rose 8% and homicides ticked up 3%.
Violence Still Concentrated on the South Side
Despite the citywide improvement, gun violence remains heavily concentrated in South Side communities like Roseland. Chicago Police Department demographic data analyzed by CBS News shows Black residents accounted for 77% of reported gun violence victims in Chicago between 2010 and 2026, despite making up roughly 28% of the city's population. A May 2023 study published in JAMA Network Open by University of Cambridge researchers found that about half of Chicago residents witness a shooting by age 40, with those in high-violence South Side neighborhoods experiencing heightened cumulative stress and trauma, according to the University of Cambridge.
Friday's shooting adds to a string of gun violence Hoodline has tracked in Roseland this year, including a pre-dawn shooting that grazed a teen earlier this month and a fatal shooting near Abbott Park in June. Area 2 detectives had also been investigating an ambush that left two people critically wounded and a South Michigan Street shooting that killed one woman and injured another. No further details on suspects or motive in Friday's shooting have been released.
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