Online fundraiser started for man beaten to death after road rage incident on South Side of Chicago
It's been one week since a man driving through the Fuller Park neighborhood was beaten to death with a baseball bat after a road rage incident.
As the person responsible is still on the run, his family and friends are raising money to send his body back to El Salvador.
Luis Calderon, affectionately known as Rodrigo, was killed during a road rage incident last week. He was 26.
It's unclear what led up to the mid-afternoon altercation, but police said another man beat the father of two with a baseball bat near Wells Street and Garfield Boulevard, parallel to the Dan Ryan Expressway.
Joi Basley lives nearby.
"It was really disturbing when I got home from work and there was just blood everywhere," she said.
Basley got home from work shortly after police and paramedics arrived.
"You cannot be in your right mind to think that, if somebody cuts you off, if somebody blew their horn, if somebody even flipped the bird, that it's okay to get out of your car with a baseball bat and commence to beating someone. It is not that serious," she said.
One of Calderon's close friends, who asked not to be identified started, an online fundraiser to help his family send his body back to family in El Salvador.
"It's crazy because they were just coming home from work. … It sucks because, you know, he couldn't make it to his daughter's birthday, which it was coming up," he said. "He loved to spend time with his daughters, especially the baby — the one that's 3 years old. He was always dancing with her. She loved dancing. He loved dancing."
As police continue to search for the person responsible, neighbors like Basley are convinced there were witnesses.
"I'm just hoping that they find the person, because it's always traffic on this street, and so somebody had to see something," she said.