Thursday, February 18, 2016

An Argument Leads To A "Self-Inflicted" Hallway Shooting

Crazy goings-on tonight on the 800 block of Ainslie, near Marine Drive. Neighbors report hearing a loud argument and struggle inside a "problem unit" in the building, followed by a gunshot, followed by a fight in the building's hallway. When it was over, a trail of blood led out the door and down the street. Police were called, and what a surprise, the tenant involved in the fight wasn't cooperative.

According to our source, "30 seconds of fighting, gunshot... Then another 15 -30 seconds of fighting.. Then the tenant was trying to mop up blood when the cops arrived... He never contacted police."

A follow-up of sorts in the Sun-Times says that a 16-year-old male, an admitted gang member, showed up at Weiss Hospital with a gunshot wound to the hand. Not-a-surprise number 2 of the evening: he wasn't cooperating with the police, either.

Police say that the wound was most likely self-inflicted.

We really hope that the 20th District Police and Ald. Osterman's office put some pressure on the landlord and/or management company about whoever is living in the unit. We're sure the rest of the tenants don't appreciate the possibility of a bullet going through the walls into their homes.

UU Note: From everything we've heard, this is a wonderful complex, and even the residents we spoke to last night about the incident spoke highly about how the place was run. Obviously this one tenant had a guest who caused trouble. This is one unit and one guest -- an isolated incident -- not an indictment of the entire building or the vast majority of the people who live there. We are told that measures are being taken to ensure it doesn't happen again.

10 comments:

  1. We gotta get used to this nonsense. It's the availability of guns that's making people stupid. Get rid of the gun availability, college all the illegal guns and the shootings go down. The 16 yr old better get his head straight and not come back for vengeance.

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  2. The other tenants in the building really do need to get over their fear and speak up and complain. Loudly and Often. I'm betting they can legally withhold rent until the tenants in the problem unit are removed. I mean, this is about as serious of a safety issue as they come. I would be raising Holy Hell with my landlord if my neighbors discharged a gun in a neighboring unit. Like Fire & Brimstone level of Holy Hell.

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  4. So its the guns fault? So guns just get up walk around and start going off at random? i assume you meant, collect all illegal guns-- how would you accomplish that? you think criminals are going to go oh gee wiz, this is illegal and i need to turn it in? Even if you were able to collect these guns, criminals would still go out and get more guns, and still shoot people. Even if you melted all the guns in the world, these gang banging idiots would use a knife, a bat, or even a rock to get back at their competitors. It is the person, not the inanimate object, and once you realize that, you might start working on the problem instead of blaming something that has nothing to do with why these idiots choose to live the way they do.

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    1. A knife or baseball bat can't shoot through the drywall into a neighboring unit. Idiots are dangerous but guns make them more dangerous.

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  5. This is a condo building. Some of the units are rented by their individual owners.

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  6. Lianna, so you're back at telling people that they have to just get used to and accept this sort of crap? Cave in if YOU want to, but the rest of us aren't going to.

    Beyond that, I hope that the condo association for the building in question knows that they can place restrictions on how unit owners rent out their units...and they should start with requiring that unit owners have background and credit checks done on potential tenants. They can also establish standards for conduct that endanger the health and safety of all residents, and require that unit owners who rent out enforce those standards or evict the tenant.

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  7. As long as bringing up this cultural corrosion is suppressed for some misguided PC reason...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cC-uR2oOoQ&ebc=ANyPxKpjRQIqc1f_LO8Gc8L5PLr0xBfQXzpjq21FwyTmpZaOXo8_pDS9LlNqDjsM2o-g6zEcJdJeuqy3YvWB9iv1CpGSwiErGg

    Then don't complain when you reap what you've sown....

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  8. I blame the criminals and not the guns. Get them out of our neighborhood! Get their support system out of our neighborhood!

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  9. Many condo buildings are becoming larger problems than landlord-owned rental buildings, because condo associations tend not to handle and regulate rentals terribly well..... and the building is 40% investor owned or more, you, the owner-occupants, can forget about imposing any meaningful restrictions.

    I speak from experience as the SOLE owner-occupant in a 9-unit building that has been degraded by investor ownership.

    While the owner-occupant regards his or her place as home and will invest love, money, and time in the place, the investor owners regard their units as profit centers and become very stingy about doing improvements and upgrades, because all they can think about is how they want to lower the HOA. Worse, they expect the "association" to take care of everything, and the "association" turns out to be the only person who gives a damn about the place and is on hand to take care of handling maintenance, making sure the vendors get paid and big jobs get bid, and other hassles associated with ownership are dealt with, are the few owner-occupants. After a while,the burden of running the building falls on the shoulders of the few remaining owner occupants, who are receiving no compensation for this, and who themselves never bargained on doing landlord and janitorial duties when they bought their places. This situation results in burned-out owner-occupants, who often decide they've had enough and sell. Then you end up with yet another "infestor", and a building that NOBODY is managing.

    Meanwhile, the place deteriorates, and the units get rented to whoever will pay the most rent. Thanks to Section 8, which enables an owner to collect higher rent from the government than he could hope to get from a market-rate-paying un-subsidized tenant, the unit has a very good chance of being rented to a voucher tenant. If the owner screens, all yet may be well, but mostly the owner, desperate for someone to pay the rent, does cursory screening if any.

    If you are a condo owner in an owner-occupied building, now is the time to get involved and exert yourself to make sure your building STAYS owner occupied, and if it has some rental units, cap the number and impose rental restrictions. Remember, you are part of the "association", too. Don't leave it to other owners to manage the place and make the rules.

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