Community calls for peace after spate of mass shootings in Chicago

The city recorded at least three mass shots last week: one in River North, another in Riverdale and a third this weekend at the rear of the construction sites, according to the CPD.

“What has happened in Chicago in recent weeks has been crazy, to say the least,” said Alvin Anthony, an organizer on the ground with Chicago Votes, who welcomed the rally, to those who were united. “We are supposed to come together, enjoy the holidays … We have people who kill each other.”

“We have to come together and keep it responsible,” added Anthony. “I have the impression that, in our community, we must stop glorifying violence.”

After the rally, the group walked at around one mile through River North. A prayer and a moment of silence took place at the corner of Chicago Avenue and Wells Street, about a pâté of houses east of one of the largest shootings of recent memory at the end of last Thursday.

Around 11 p.m. that evening, gusts of gunshots won four lives and left 14 other people injured while they stood on the sidewalk in the 300 block of West Chicago.

The participants had gathered to celebrate the release of an album by the rapper of Chicago Drill Mello Buckzz, whose legal name is Melanie Doyle. The medical medical examiner’s office last week identified the four dead like Leon Andrew Henry, 25, Devonte Williamson, 23, Aviance King, 27, and Taylor Walker, 26.

The victims were shot dead while they stood outside the site – the restaurant and the artists of the recently open community space – which was rented for the party.

The shooting has been among the worst in the city in recent years and has been a warning that even if violent crimes have dropped in recent years, armed violence – in particular that fueled by rivalries in the landscape of the exploded gangs of Chicago – remains obstinately persistent.

“Shootings like these are a tragic reminder of how far we still have to go as a city,” said Mayor Brandon Johnson at a press conference last Thursday, calling the incident of a coward “act of hatred”.

City and state officials have criticized the mass shooting while calling an isolated incident and asking citizens to send information to investigators. The deputy mayor of public security Garien Gatewood said that none of the victims was a resident of the North River district.

Over the past 15 years, the Chicago drilling rap scene has often been linked to deadly armed violence as rival artists with insults and gang threats renowned through their words and mockery of social media.

Police officials did not offer reason, citing the investigation pending, but said it was clear that the place was targeted.

“It was not a random shoot where someone has just decided that they were going to shoot this group of people in particular,” said DPC superintendent Larry Snelling last week. “Obviously, there is a pattern there.”

On its Facebook page – followed by nearly 100,000 people – Mello Buckzz seems to claim an affiliation with the NLMB, a gang faction with a territory in the South Coast district which has been linked to several murders in recent years. Among the most prominent NLMB Associates is the Chicago G Herbo drilling rapper, who collaborated with Mello Buckzz in a song published in 2024.

The members and partners of the NLMB – an acronym of “No Limit Muskegon Boyz” and “Never Leave My Brothers” – were previously linked to another quadruple murder in the southern shore in 2017 and another cheeky day in a hairdressing salon in the south loop in 2021.

The group was also linked to a mass shooting in 2021 in a retail store rented in the Ashburn district, according to police sources. Two armed men opened fire on the participants of a birthday party, leaving a dead man and seven other injured people.

Earlier this year, Doyle was sentenced to probation for having pretended to attacked a woman on what his lawyer in court documents described as “dissolved threats” of the complainant witness.