25-year-old dies after shooting on Chicago's Eisenhower Expressway
CHICAGO (CBS) – An early morning shooting on the Eisenhower Expressway on Chicago's Near West Side left a 25-year-old man dead and shut down the Paulina Street ramp for several hours on Thursday.
Bullets hit at least one car in the westbound lanes just before 3:30 a.m., and more than two dozen shell casings were left behind. Illinois State Police said there was still no one in custody as of the afternoon.
It was the seventh shooting on an expressway so far in 2024.
Arthur Lurigio, a professor of criminal justice and psychology who tracks shootings on expressways in Chicago, said such incidents are so common because of the ease of access and disappearance.
"You can shoot at someone, hit them, be at 70 miles an hour, and on the off-ramp within seconds," Lurigio said. "And then have your vehicle disappear into general traffic or parked on the street."
He added that Chicago has the dubious distinction of leading the nation in expressway shootings and homicides in recent years. Shootings are most common on the Eisenhower, Dan Ryan and Bishop Ford expressways because they are parallel to high crime areas, Lurigio said.
He added the shootings could be the result of "altercations spilling onto the expressway from the street."
Over the last three years, expressway shootings in Illinois have been on the decline, according to a state police database.
In 2021, there were 310 shootings, 28 of which were fatal. In 2022, the number of total shootings fell to 189, four of which were fatal. In 2023, there were 129 shootings, 10 of which were fatal.
Lurigio said he believes some measures taken by the state have contributed to the downtrend, including more cameras taking photos of license plates, and more patrolling for potential offenders.
"We may see a continuation of shootings at this early rate or we may not," he said. "But it's disheartening for me to see so many in such a brief period of time in 2024. I'm hopeful that those numbers will reverse themselves."
