Antonio McDuffie, 18, a male of Black/African American ethnicity, was standing at a Shell station at 45 N. Western Avenue on Chicago’s Near West Side late on Monday, July 28, 2025, when gunfire erupted from a passing vehicle. The barrage struck Antonio McDuffie in the legs and head and also hit a 49-year-old man nearby. Responding officers and paramedics rushed Antonio McDuffie to Stroger Hospital, where doctors fought to save him through the night. By 9:46 a.m.
on Tuesday, July 29, 2025, he was pronounced dead, the Cook County medical examiner confirming his identity and residence in the 1000 block of West 56th Street. The older victim survived and was listed in fair condition with wounds to the buttocks and abdomen.
The shooting unfolded in a matter of seconds along the first block of North Western Avenue, a stretch that straddles the edge of the Near West Side and East Garfield Park and is crossed daily by commuters and neighborhood residents. Police described it as a drive-by attack, with rounds fired from a moving vehicle that sped off into the city night. For Antonio McDuffie, 18, the brief trip to the gas station became his final journey; by dawn, candles and questions were gathering in equal measure at the corner.
Detectives opened a homicide investigation and canvassed for witnesses and video from the businesses clustered around the station. As the day wore on, officials reiterated that no one was in custody and released no description of the shooter or the vehicle, underscoring how quickly the ambush unfolded and how thin the early leads were. Local coverage chronicled the overnight shift from “critically wounded” to “fatal,” tracing the narrow timeline between the shots at about 10:40 p.m. and the death of Antonio McDuffie, 18, at the hospital hours later.
Community memorial pages soon recorded the loss of Antonio McDuffie, 18, marking the date—July 28, 2025—and the city he called home. These notices echoed the essential facts as detectives continued to seek tips. As of the latest reports tied to the incident, police had announced no arrests and had not named any suspects in the killing of Antonio McDuffie, 18.
