A generally quiet corner of Chicago erupted in gunfire Saturday afternoon, as a gunman shot and killed four people as they had dinner in one condominium and a single woman in another, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
Police took the 67-year-old suspect, a 15-year resident of the condominium building and former construction worker, into custody but have not named him because he has not yet been charged, the Chicago Tribune said.
“When he walked into that neighbor’s apartment, there were four people at the table eating dinner. For reasons we don’t yet know, he opened fire on all four of those individuals, killing them all,” First Deputy Supt. Anthony Riccio told WGN.
Police said the gun used in Saturday’s shootings was recovered.
Authorities have named only one of the dead, a 53-year-old woman identified as Jolanta Topolska who initially survived her wounds but died on Sunday. The Cook County Coroner said that one of the other victims was a woman named Tsvetanka Kostadinova, who was one of the four shot as they had dinner.
Neighbors and others told the Chicago Sun-Times that the suspect had had run-ins with some of the victims in the past, although he does not have a criminal record. The Sun-Times and other outlets are aware of the suspects name but will not provide that name until police charge him with a crime.
One neighbor said he was “unstable” and “had problems” with some of the victims; another said he gave her “creepy” looks and was “angry all the time.”‘
“Most of the occupants inside the building have had problems with him in the past but nothing obviously of this magnitude,” Riccio said during a Saturday evening news conference. “He’s had confrontations with people in the building before. We don’t know what set him off tonight.”
The Sun-Times also looked into the suspect’s court records and said they show an increasingly dire financial situation in recent years.
The shooting took place in Chicago’s northwestern Dunning neighborhood, where one in three residents are Polish and many city workers, including firefighters and police, live.
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