Anthony Kossler was playing a video game and talking to friends online early Friday morning when he heard shots outside his Oak Park condo. Police sirens followed minutes later.
Someone had just shot “like a 9-mil or something,” he told his friends.
“I heard the shots, and I immediately knew what they were,” Kossler, 42, told the Chicago Sun-Times.
About 1:20 a.m., officers responded to a call of shots fired at 651 South Blvd. and found Corey Gates, 54, of South Holland, on the pavement with an apparent gunshot wound just west of Wesley Avenue, Oak Park police said.
Gates was taken to Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, where he was pronounced dead at 2 a.m.
“It sounded like they fired three shots, had a panic reaction and realized they needed to fire more,” Kossler, who comes from a family with a military background, said. “It did not sound disciplined, it sounded frantic.”
A witness told officers that about five males wearing black clothing ran from the scene, officials said.
Six people — three adults and three minors — matching that description were seen running east on Pleasant Street from Cuyler Avenue and were taken into custody, authorities said. No charges have been announced. No weapons were recovered.
A pool of blood could be seen near a white vehicle officers were examining Friday morning. One officer stationed about a block away was flying a drone over the scene where crime scene tape continued to block off Wesley Avenue.
Several residents, including 54-year-old Marita Bollici, were awakened or startled by “six to seven rapid-fire shots.”
Bollici said she saw a group of people near the vehicle through her front doorbell camera after the shots were fired and hoped her 11-year-old son wouldn’t be awakened.
“I’m pretty sad about it,” said Bollici, who has lived in the neighborhood for about five years. “I don’t think that there’s any safe neighborhood.”
A 37-year-old man who has lived on the block for more than a year said he was half-asleep when he was startled by the shots, followed swiftly by the arrival of five police cars.
“You hear about [gun violence] all the time,” said the resident, who didn’t want to be named. “You can’t avoid it, but when it happens on your block it’s like, wow, I don’t know what to do about it.”
Several community members said Friday morning’s shooting brought back emotions from the shooting death of Oak Park Police Detective Allan Reddins last November, about a half-mile away.
“That was close enough,” the resident said of Reddins’ shooting. “This is obviously even closer.”
“This kind of stuff doesn’t usually happen around here, but it’s been getting worse lately,” said Kossler, who has lived in Oak Park his entire life. “The communities are supposed to be getting safer, not more dangerous.”
The Oak Park Police Department is investigating the shooting with the assistance of the West Suburban Major Crimes Task Force.
Contributing: Cindy Hernandez