A 54-year-old man was in critical condition Saturday night after being shot in the head near Millennium Park and the Art Institute of Chicago downtown, and a man was being questioned in the shooting.
He was walking with two people around 7:35 p.m. along Michigan Avenue when he got into an argument with another man at the northeast corner of Michigan and Monroe Street, according to the police, who said they started fighting, and the other man pulled a gun and shot him in the head.
The wounded man was taken in critical condition to Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
The shooter took off on a bicycle but was arrested nearby, according to police, who said detectives were questioning a “person of interest” Saturday night.
“I feel a unsafe now,” said Twion Stevens, 26, who was out for a walk near the park when he heard commotion and came upon the crime scene. “It makes me worry about my daughter — she’s 4 years old and means the world to me. This is Millennium Park. Kids play here, people come here to enjoy themselves. This is sad.”
Stevens, a minister, said he moved away from the South Side to get away from violence.
“Chicago needs to do better than what’s going on right now,” he said.
Frankie Cortez, 18, was near the park and “saw blood on the ground and police everywhere.”
He was visiting from Milwaukee for an event with his church called “Run for Hope.”
“This world is going crazy,” Cortez said. “Stuff is continuing to happen, and you need to bring hope to the city and hope to America.”
Jeff Olson, 34, said he was across the street from Millennium Park and saw people running.
“They kept screaming, ‘He’s unconscious!’ ” said Olson, a photographer visiting Chicago from Wisconsin. “I crossed the street and saw him down on the ground with two women who were frantic.
“This is a crazy occurrence to happen in this area by Millennium Park,” he said. “We are all in shock.”
Clothing on the ground at the scene of a shooting downtown at Michigan Avenue and Monroe Street. | Jacob Wittich / Sun-Times
