A 38-year-old woman is dead after she was shot in the chest following an argument on the 1300 block of West 13th Street, on Chicago's Near West Side, according to Chicago police. The woman had been standing outside and arguing with another person when she was shot, police said. She was rushed to a nearby hospital, where she was later pronounced dead.
According to ABC7 Chicago, the shooting happened Sunday on the 1300 block of West 13th Street, near Throop Street. Police said the suspect fled the scene on foot after firing the shot, and as of the station's report, investigators had released no further details about who pulled the trigger. The woman was taken to Stroger Hospital, where she died from her injuries.
The block sits within the boundaries of the Roosevelt Square and University Village neighborhood, an area built on land once occupied by the Chicago Housing Authority's former ABLA Homes public housing development before it was redeveloped into mixed-income housing starting in the early 2000s, per the City of Chicago. The shooting also falls within the jurisdiction of the Chicago Police Department's 12th District, headquartered on South Blue Island Avenue and responsible for patrolling Near West Side neighborhoods including University Village and Little Italy.
A Block With a History of Gunfire
This is not the first shooting recorded on this exact stretch of West 13th Street. In August 2025, a 39-year-old man was shot in the chest while standing outside on the same block, according to a report from CBS News at the time. Just one block south, on West Hastings Street, a June drive-by shooting wounded three people outside a residential building, as Hoodline reported in its piece on the pre-dawn drive-by horror that struck the same corridor.
Homicide investigations originating in the 12th District are handled by the Chicago Police Department's Area 3 Detective Division, which can be reached at 312-744-8263 for anyone with information. Residents can also submit tips anonymously, including photos, video, or location details, through the department's online portal at cpdtip.com.
Citywide Numbers Tell a Mixed Story
Chicago posted a historic drop in violent crime in 2025, ending the year with 168 fewer homicides than in 2024, according to a January analysis from the University of Chicago Crime Lab. But mid-year 2026 data compiled by the Council on Criminal Justice showed homicides ticking up 3% during the first six months of 2026 compared with the same stretch of 2025, even as robberies and other violent offenses fell 28% citywide over that span.
Sunday's shooting adds to a string of recent gun violence on Chicago's Near West Side that Hoodline has tracked in recent months, including a nonfatal shooting that shut down lanes on the Dan Ryan Expressway in early August, a triple shooting near the United Center in July, and a daytime shooting that left a man critically wounded in late June. A teenager was also shot dead on a Near West Side block in December, part of a pattern of violence that has repeatedly touched the same set of blocks around University Village.
What Happens If a Suspect Is Charged
Under Illinois law, first-degree murder carries a base sentence of 20 to 60 years in prison. When a firearm is discharged and causes death, state statute adds a mandatory enhancement of 25 years to life, according to the Restore Justice Foundation, pushing any eventual sentence to a minimum of 45 years served at 100 percent under the state's truth-in-sentencing rules. No suspect has been identified or charged in Sunday's shooting, and the motive behind the argument that preceded it remains unknown.
Stroger Hospital, located about a mile northwest of the shooting scene on West Harrison Street, is one of the nation's busiest Level I adult trauma centers, handling roughly 120,000 emergency admissions each year as Cook County's primary public safety-net trauma hospital. The woman's identity has not been released, and it remains unclear whether detectives have recovered surveillance footage from nearby buildings that might help identify the person who ran from the scene.
