A 34-year-old Hispanic male from Chicago, identified by officials as Alcaraz C. Reyes, was shot in the chest just after dawn on March 22, 2016, in the Back of the Yards neighborhood.
The attack happened at about 6:15 a.m. in the 5200 block of South Winchester Avenue, steps from where he lived.
First responders rushed him to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead less than an hour later, at 7:08 a.m.
Police marked off the residential block as neighbors emerged to the sound of sirens and the thud of squad doors closing, a quiet weekday morning cleaved by gunfire.
In the hours that followed, detectives canvassed the street while evidence technicians searched for shell casings and cameras.
Authorities said they could not immediately say whether later gunfire reported on the same block that evening was connected to the morning killing.
As of the initial reports, no one had been taken into custody, and Area Central detectives were investigating the case.
Subsequent public listings of Chicago homicides for that date and location confirm the fatal shooting and do not note an arrest tied to Reyes's killing.
Public memorial pages and records preserved after the shooting fix the day and name: “Alcaraz C. Reyes,” killed March 22, 2016, in Illinois.
The entry stands among other victims of gunfire that Tuesday, a stark ledger of names and dates.
An obituary published that week for “Reyes Alcaraz,” age 34, announced services in Chicago and described a loved son, partner, and father, sketching the contours of a life that extended far beyond a police log.
Together, these notices bracket the bare facts of a death with the traces of family and community that remained to mourn him.
In the broader context of that violent year, the shooting aligned with the city's surge in gun homicides: sudden, public, and devastating.
Yet for this case, the official narrative ends where it began, on a South Side block at daybreak, leaving behind a brief police summary, a time of death, and a neighborhood that woke to loss.
No arrests or suspects were announced in contemporaneous reporting, and the record reflects an open question at the center of a quiet street.
