Word that a 35-year-old man had been shot to death spread rapidly up and down a two-block stretch of Gage Park Monday evening.
Police said the man was standing outside on the 5200 block of South Washtenaw Avenue when someone drove up, took out a gun and fired at him from inside around 7:20 p.m.
The man was wounded in the face and the abdomen and pronounced dead at Mount Sinai Hospital, police said.
By 7:35 p.m., neighbors lined the intersection of West 52nd Street and Washtenaw and families clustered on their front steps, watching as police worked in front of two brick houses. 10 evidence markers were scattered in the street.
People came in twos and threes to the intersection, all asking what had happened in English and Spanish. Neighbors would fill them in with the little they knew and their faces would darken as they shook their heads and moved on. Children kept running up and down the sidewalk on either side of the police tape.
A black car pulled up to the intersection from the north with a passenger window rolled down. A woman inside was sobbing.
“He was right there,” she said. “He was right there.”
She put her head in her hands for a moment, then made the sign of the cross over her chest several times. The car turned westbound and drove away.
Police said no one was in custody regarding the shooting, and Area One detectives were investigating.
