A 21-year-old man was shot and killed while driving through Logan Square on Tuesday night, after someone inside a white SUV opened fire on his vehicle and sped off, Chicago police said. The shooting happened around 9:53 p.m. in the 3400 block of West Diversey Avenue, leaving a 48-year-old passenger in the car physically unharmed but a community once again grappling with gun violence on a stretch of road that has seen shootings before.
According to ABC7 Chicago, police said the victim's vehicle had stopped beside the white SUV when the person inside fired, striking the 21-year-old in the back. The shooter then fled southbound on Central Park Avenue, police said. The 48-year-old passenger riding with him was not injured in the attack, according to the outlet.
Victim Rushed to Hospital, Pronounced Dead
Police said the wounded driver was taken to Illinois Masonic Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, per the same report. Area Five detectives are now investigating the shooting, working to identify the person responsible and determine what led to the gunfire. No further details about a motive or suspect description beyond the white SUV and its direction of flight have been released.
This is not the first time gunfire has erupted on that same stretch of West Diversey Avenue. In an earlier, separate shooting on the 3400 block, a 24-year-old man was shot in the hand around 3:35 a.m. by someone firing from a passing vehicle, which police at the time described as a gray Toyota, the station's report notes.
Pattern of Violence Across Logan Square
Logan Square has seen other deadly shootings in recent years. In August 2024, Chicago police said a homicide occurred in the 1700 block of North Harding Avenue around 2:25 a.m., when a 32-year-old man later identified by the Cook County Medical Examiner as Joel Cardenas was shot in the head, according to fox32chicago.com. Two other people were hurt in that incident — a 19-year-old man was shot in the back, and a woman suffered minor injuries from broken glass but was not shot, the outlet reported. Police at the time released surveillance footage of a person suspected in that homicide who was seen with a light-colored SUV.
In another Logan Square case, a 26-year-old man was shot and killed after officers were called to the 2700 block of North Harding just before 8 p.m. on a Sunday, NBC Chicago reported. That victim was also found shot in the back and died after being rushed to a hospital, and Area Five detectives investigated that case as well, with no suspects in custody, per the outlet.
Citywide Shootings Trending Down Overall
Tuesday's killing comes even as Chicago's broader violent crime numbers have continued trending downward this year. The city recorded 39 homicides in August 2026, the lowest total for any August since 2011, according to Chicago Police Department data cited by news.wttw.com. Shooting incidents that month fell nearly 20% compared to August 2025, and the number of people shot dropped by nearly 18% over the same period, per CPD figures.
Still, the citywide homicide tally through the end of August stood at 289, two more than at the same point in 2025, WTTW reported. Through the first eight months of the year, 1,264 people had been shot in Chicago, about 1% fewer than during the same stretch last year, while robberies were down 23% year-to-date and burglaries down 11%, according to the same CPD data. For now, the investigation into Tuesday night's Diversey Avenue shooting remains open, with Area Five detectives continuing to seek the person who fired from the white SUV.
