In Chicago on February 12, 2011, DeAngelo L. Alexander, an African American male, age 23, was standing on a South Side sidewalk when gunfire shattered the predawn quiet.
Just after 3:19 a.m., shots rang out in the 6800 block of South Elizabeth Street; Alexander was struck in the neck and rushed to St. Bernard Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 3:50 a.m.
He lived nearby on West 68th Street, and the attack unfolded only minutes before 3:30 a.m., a detail that fixed the tragedy in
the narrow window between bar-closing darkness and daybreak.
Two other young men were cut down by the same volley.
A 23-year-old, also hit in the neck, was taken in stable condition to University of Chicago Hospitals, while a 22-year-old suffered a leg wound and was transported to Holy Cross Hospital in good condition.
The scene on Elizabeth Street told of sudden chaos, three friends on a sidewalk, a burst of shots, flashing lights, and ambulances ferrying the wounded along familiar South Side routes.
Detectives from the Wentworth Area began the investigation before the sun was up. In those first hours, police said no one was in custody and no description of the gunman was immediately available.
The early accounts offered no motive, only the bare facts of a street-corner shooting that ended the life of a 23-year-old man and left two others injured, while officers canvassed the block where the night had broken into sudden violence.
