Officials to Broach Fatal Humboldt Park Shooting Wednesday

The site of a Sunday morning fatality will be the backdrop for a Wednesday morning news conference that was scheduled shortly after the incident took place.

The Sunday morning Humboldt Park crime left 34-year-old Andre Velazquez, of the 2100 block of North Lawndale Avenue, dead. He sustained a gunshot wound to the head, Chicago Police News Affairs officers said Monday. He was pronounced dead at 6:35 a.m. at John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County.

Velazquez was shot just after 6 a.m. in what police believe was a fight that started in an after-hours bar in the 2500 block of West Division Street, according to the Chicago Tribune. The bar has been reported as an "illegal social club" used by the Spanish Cobras gang.

The building is directly across the street from the offices of State Rep. Cynthia Soto and Ald. Roberto Maldonado and about one block west of Wicker Park's southwestern boundary.

Maldonado's staff confirmed Monday that a press conference regarding the shooting, and possibly the social club's fate, is set for Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. It will be at 2506 W. Division St., where witnesses said they heard multiple shots fired Sunday.

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"A witness reported hearing three or four shots before a brown or gold Chrysler Sebring flew by," the Chicago Tribune story says. "A 20-year-old man was shot in the arm and fled the scene, leaving a trail of blood that ended blocks away, police said. The man later walked into West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park ..."

Violence is, unfortunately, nothing new to those in Humboldt Park. The New York Times recently analyzed more than 6,100 homicides within Chicago city limits from Jan. 1, 2001 through Dec. 24, 2012 as part of its "A Chicago Divided by Killings" report. Findings placed Humboldt Park among those with the highest murder rates of the past decade.

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Reporters from the Tribune also referenced the community's history.

"Some residents recalled a time when taxi drivers refused to cross Western Avenue, the dividing line between the two neighborhoods," its story said. "Now the neighborhood's eastern edge, from Western to the park, is much safer, they said."

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