Two people killed, five others wounded in South Side shooting

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Chicago Police investigate the multiple shootings that left two dead and five injured on the 2500 block of E. 79th street Sunday night. | TOM CRUZE~Sun-Times

Updated: March 21, 2012 8:16AM

Two men were killed and five teen boys were wounded, including a 13-year-old, in a Sunday night drive-by shooting on the South Side, officials said.

The shooting happened at 6:56 p.m. when gun fire erupted from a beige vehicle in the 2500 block of East 79th, police said.

Responding paramedics found fatally shot in their chests ­— a 62-year-old man and a 19-year-old man. The teens were ages 13 to 16, officials said.

A 14-year-old was taken to University of Chicago Comer’s Children’s Hospital in critical condition after he was shot in his stomach, police said.

The four other teens were taken to Jackson Park and Trinity Hospital, the fire officials said. Their injuries were mostly in the lower portions of their bodies.

The shooting left one man dead on the sidewalk outside a liquor store near East 79th and Essex. His mother turned 81 Saturday, witnesses said, and they spent the weekend celebrating.

Dante Wilson said he was coming around the corner when he heard seven or eight shots, then three or four more after a pause. All from one gun.

“I just saw everybody screaming and hollering, chaotic,” Wilson said.

He said the victim on the sidewalk — the older man — was a good person who would help anyone he could. Friends and neighbors near the scene said the man raked yards, shoveled snow and helped landlords keep up the area.

He also warned people not to hang around when young boys gathered on a corner, fearing the sort of violence that ended his life. The mother of one of his children was fatally shot near the same corner months ago, they said.

“It never fails,” Jean Richards said. “It’s always something with these young boys.