On the night of July 2, 2025, in Chicago’s River North, Leon Andrew Henry, 25, a Black male, stood among a crowd spilling out onto West Chicago Avenue when a dark SUV rolled past and gunfire erupted. The chaos outside Artis Restaurant and Lounge—where an album release party had drawn a large gathering—was sudden and overwhelming. In the barrage, Henry was fatally struck, one of four people killed as fourteen others were wounded, with witnesses describing a scene that felt like a war zone.
Authorities said the attack began around 11 p.m., with multiple shooters firing from the vehicle as it passed the packed sidewalk. Investigators recovered two calibers of shell casings and began scouring surveillance footage, canvassing for tips, and appealing to witnesses as ambulances ferried the injured to Northwestern Memorial and Stroger hospitals. The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office identified the four who died as Henry, Devonte Terrell Williamson, Taylor Walker, and Aviance King.
Police leaders called the drive-by “cowardly” and emphasized it was not random. Reporting in the days that followed focused on whether the party’s high profile made the gathering a target; some accounts noted the event was for rapper Mello Buckzz and suggested she may have been the intended target. City officials ordered the venue closed while community leaders and the local alderman decried persistent violence tied to nightlife corridors.
As of the immediate aftermath and subsequent coverage, no arrests had been announced. The shooters fled in the SUV and remained at large while detectives pursued leads, reviewed videos from the scene, and appealed for public assistance. Henry’s name joined the year’s grim ledger of homicide victims, his death recorded by local and national outlets as part of a mass casualty attack that shook one of the city’s busiest neighborhoods on the eve of a holiday weekend.
