Black / African American, male, age 53. On the evening of February 19, 2012, Gregory “Alamo” Glinsey, age 53, stepped out from a family celebration in Chicago's South Shore neighborhood to run a simple errand for his mother, who had just turned 80.
He headed to the Budget Food and Liquor in the 2500 block of East 79th Street.
Moments later, a beige car rolled up and gunfire tore through the scene.
Glinsey was struck in the chest outside the store and died there, the father of four remembered by relatives as small in stature but resolute in spirit, a man whose nickname spoke to his stubborn strength.
Inside the store, 19-year-old Jamal Harris also lost his life, and the block fell into chaos as first responders converged.
The burst of violence wounded five teenagers, one of them a 14-year-old who was rushed to Comer Children's Hospital in critical condition, while neighbors recounted the suddenness of the drive-by and the shock of seeing a routine stop end in tragedy.
Authorities placed the timeline just before 7 p.m., with multiple rounds fired from the passing vehicle, and by night's end, candles and questions began to gather along the curb where the 53-year-old had fallen.
Police said Gregory Glinsey, age 53, appeared to have been an innocent bystander, caught outside the store at precisely the wrong moment.
Family members told reporters he had ducked out to buy ice for the celebration, a detail that would come to stand in for the ordinariness of the evening before it was shattered.
In the days that followed, remembrances and memorials fixed his name among the city's grim tally for that year, even as loved ones tried to hold on to the memory of his steadiness and care.
Detectives gathered surveillance footage and canvassed the area for witnesses, and early descriptions focused on a beige car and reports that two males, roughly 17 to 25, were inside when the shots were fired.
Yet no arrests were announced in the immediate aftermath, and subsequent reporting offers no public indication that suspects were identified or charged in the killing of Gregory Glinsey, age 53.
The case persists in news archives and memorial pages as unsolved, its loose ends carried forward by a family and a neighborhood still marked by the sudden loss.
