Chicago shooting: Dashcam footage captures 2 men stuck in traffic opening fire at another car
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS: A car's dashcam footage was able to capture the shocking, public gunfire that ensued on Thursday, June 24, at a busy traffic light in Chicago. Two men can be seen exiting a red sedan at the traffic light before they open multiple rounds at another vehicle nearby. The man whose car's dashcam caught the violence has been identified as Huber Pereznegron from Chicago's Chatham neighborhood. He and another passenger can be heard in the background of the video as gunshots rang right in front of them, their car trapped yards away from the shooting.
As of June 23, 316 people have been killed in Chicago just this year, reveal preliminary police statistics. This traffic light shooting also follows the brutal cold-blooded murder of a Puerto Rican couple, who were attacked on June 19, as they were celebrating Puerto Rico day. Shot by a group of Black men who dragged them out of their car in Chicago's Humboldt Park, the couple. The man was shot in the head and taken to the nearby Saints Mary and Elizabeth Medical Center where he was pronounced dead. The woman was shot in the neck and was admitted to Stroger Hospital, Cook County in critical condition where she died on Tuesday, June 22. They were parents to two young children.
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Pereznegron, too, feared he would end up being a victim in the shooting he witnessed last week. Speaking to local NBC channel WMAQ-TV, he recounted he was waiting at a red light at around 10.30 am on Thursday when the incident happened. "I see one guy getting out of the backseat with a rifle. I really didn't think too much of it, because I didn't think it was real, until the second person got out, then I saw him with another gun," he told the channel.
The footage captured by Pereznegron's vehicle that has since been circulated on social media, shows two men exit the red car, possibly a Nissan Altima, that was right in front of Pereznegron. The men then fire multiple rounds at the other vehicle near the traffic light at East 86th Street and the Dan Ryan Expressway. "He starts shooting and all of the sudden the magazine falls out and he stops shooting or otherwise it could have been a lot worse," Pereznegron told WBBM-TV, adding that he and his passenger friend slouched down to try and take cover when the gunfire opened, but said, "I ducked, but I wanted to see."
Dashcam catches a Chicago shoot-out. Where one offender had a full auto rifle firing multiple shots at a vehicle in traffic yesterday. pic.twitter.com/9pH6nCznY5
— ᒍOSᕼᑌᗩ ᒍEᖇEᗪ (@Joshuajered) June 25, 2021
The packed traffic didn't allow Pereznegron to reverse his car either. "I wanted to reverse, but I was kind of trapped," Pereznegron said. "I really couldn't go anywhere. I was stuck. All that I was thinking, hoping the other guys were not going to shoot back towards us," he said. Soon after the magazine fell out, both gunmen can be seen retreating and driving away. Police were alerted of the bullets by a nearby ShotSpotter, an audio sensor that alerts police to the sound of gunfire.
An investigation has been launched into the incident although no injuries were reported, neither have any arrests been made. "They don't really care anymore when they go out, who sees them or what they do," Pereznegron said of criminals in the city. "I'm not sure what's going on through their mind. This stuff needs to stop. There was a lot of innocent people around them." He had installed the dashcam after a car accident that happened six months ago.