A 32-year-old man told Chicago police he was shot in the back Wednesday afternoon, then got behind the wheel of a vehicle and crashed into a steel beam blocks away. He was rushed to U of C Hospital in serious condition, and as of Wednesday evening, police said no other information was available.
According to ABC7 Chicago, the shooting happened at about 1:30 p.m. in the 1600-block of East 82nd Street. The man then got into a vehicle and crashed into a steel beam in the 7900 block of South Stony Island Avenue, police told the outlet.
Police confirmed the man was taken to U of C Hospital in serious condition. The outlet's report does not identify the victim, name a suspect, or describe a motive, and no arrest has been reported.
A Stretch of Road With a Troubled Recent History
Wednesday's crash site sits along a corridor that has seen repeated violence this year. In February, four people were shot in a Woodlawn attack in the 6600 block of South Stony Island Avenue, with one victim in critical condition, per the same account from the Chicago Sun-Times. In September, 37-year-old Ryan Bussell was fatally shot in front of a business in the 7300 block of South Stony Island Avenue, after a woman reportedly fired shots at the location around 6:04 p.m., the Sun-Times reported. Bussell was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he later died, the outlet noted. It is not known whether Wednesday's shooting is connected to those earlier incidents.
Citywide Numbers Show an Uneven Picture
The South Side shooting comes amid a year of mixed trendlines for gun violence across Chicago. Through the first four months of 2026, the city recorded 421 shootings, a 5% increase over the same period in 2025, according to Chicago Police Department data cited by WTTW News. The station reported that 501 people had been shot during that stretch, up 9% from a year earlier, and that homicides climbed 39% in April alone, from 23 in 2025 to 32 this year. Officers also recovered more than 3,000 illegal firearms so far in 2026, including an average of 29 a day in April, per WTTW's report.
Violence has not spread evenly across the city. The Deering District recorded 60 shootings since the start of the year and a 183% jump in homicides compared with the same period in 2025, according to the Chicago Tribune. The broader police area that includes Deering, known as Area 1, saw a 68% increase in homicides over the same stretch, the Tribune reported. Even so, the paper noted that citywide shootings and homicides in 2026 remained lower year-to-date than they were in 2022.
That concentration of violence played out fatally in Back of the Yards on May 26, when a shooting killed 17-year-old Pedro Ramírez and wounded two other men, the Tribune reported. Chicago police have not said whether Wednesday's shooting on East 82nd Street is linked to any broader pattern, and the condition of the 32-year-old victim beyond his initial hospitalization in serious condition has not been released.
