Gun Battle at Local Attraction: ‘It Was a War Zone,’ ‘Everybody Was Shooting Everybody’

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What happens when you defund your police force? You get one gun battle street shooting after another. Chicago is now “a war zone” where everybody is shooting everybody. That’s the lesson Mayor Lori Lightfoot still won’t learn, no matter how hard her nose is rubbed in it.

Gun battle in the street

The battle on Milwaukee Avenue in front of the Wicker Park Club, just before 3 a.m. on October 10, proves that it doesn’t take long for a major urban metropolitan city like Chicago to revert to the thrilling days of yesteryear.

Armed gunplay in streets in front of the saloon went out of style in the 19th century. All it took to revert back to lawlessness was a year of unchecked arson and looting, sanctioned by city officials who persecuted the police instead of enforcing justice.

The tragedy two weeks ago could have been prevented if there had been enough manpower. Since then, many of the few remaining cops who still patrolled the city have been terminated for refusing a vaccine shot.

Since they can’t beat the anarchist protesters, they decided to join them by picketing at City Hall. If armed gangsters want to battle it out in the street, they can relax in the knowledge that cops are spread too thin to do much about it.

The night of the big battle at the Wicker Park club, Milwaukee Avenue “was clogged with cars and people and was getting noisier and more crowded by the hour.” The merchants had a deal with the cops to prevent that by clearing crowds and towing cars but it wasn’t happening that night.

Not long before the shooting, “at The Point called police and asked for squad cars to clear the block in front of the Wicker Park club.” They never showed up. More than a half hour later, the club shut down the bar. “The shooting started about 10 minutes later.”

Another mass shooting

This wasn’t simply one inebriated patron in a dispute who pulled a piece. “As many as four gunmen opened fire as people ran through traffic, ducked behind cars or limped down the street.”

In the furious battle, one person was killed, four more wounded. Local news outlet Sun-Times notes it “was another mass shooting in a year that was already far out-pacing each of the last five years.” The club owner says it “could have been prevented had police stuck with a plan worked out with the neighborhood.”

“Some weekends it was happening, some weekends they weren’t,” Jun Lin told the press. “We were told it is because the resources were being stretched too thin, but it doesn’t change the fact that someone died.”

Fernandos Johnson Jr. witnessed the battle. He “had just finished playing a show at nearby Subterranean” and wandered to The Point to unwind, as usual. “After the lights came on and staff began ushering people out the door, Johnson stayed behind, talking with a friend until security told them they had to leave.”

He heard gunfire as he was nearing the front door. “I ducked behind the wall. You hear people screaming, running around the club. It was a wild couple of minutes.” Security got people back inside. “One staff member is seen helping a wounded woman inside, as another works to apply a tourniquet to her leg.” As Lin relates, “It was a war zone. Everybody was shooting everybody.” Cameras show “a man in a ski mask standing near a car outside and firing a gun, apparently shooting back at someone across the street.” That seems to be the start of the battle.

“The first shots were fired by Raymond R. Jones at a group of people outside the club, according to police. Someone from the group returned fire, striking the 32-year-old Jones in the chest as he fell between two parked cars.” If police had been doing their jobs that night, Teanius Sykes could not have retrieved a gun of his own from a car parked at the curb. “Sykes entered the car of his girlfriend, a security guard, and took her handgun from the glovebox. Sykes was captured on surveillance video shooting into the crowd by The Point. Someone from the crowd again returned fire.” It’s only going to get worse from here.