At Least 4 Killed, 14 Wounded in River North Mass Shooting

Matt Masterson | July 3, 2025, 6:12 pm

Four people were killed and more than a dozen others were wounded in a mass shooting outside a River North venue late Wednesday.

According to the Chicago Police Department, the shooting occurred at around 11 p.m. in the 300 block of West Chicago Avenue.

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Police said a dark-colored vehicle drove past the location and an unknown number of people seated inside opened fire, striking at least 18 people.

Four of those victims — a 24-year-old man, a 25-year-old man and two women ages 26 and 27 — were fatally struck. Three other victims were listed in critical condition and one person was in serious condition, police said.

The remaining victims were hospitalized in fair-to-good condition.

Police said the vehicle involved immediately fled the scene and no one is currently in custody. Area Three Detectives are investigating.

Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling said the victims were standing outside on the sidewalk when shots rang out. He called the shooting “deplorable and cowardly.” He said a motive is not yet known and it’s not clear if any individual person in the group was targeted in the shooting, which he called an “isolated” incident.

“They didn’t care who was struck,” Snelling said, “and in a matter of seconds they were able to shoot 18 people … taking four lives.”

Officers work the scene of a shooting Wednesday, July 2, 2025, in Chicago. (Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune via AP)

“I can only describe it as a war zone,” Chicago pastor Donovan Price, who responds to communities and people in crisis, told The Associated Press. ”Just mayhem and blood and screaming and confusion as people tried to find their friends and phones. It was a horrendous, tragic, dramatic scene.”

NBC5 reported the shooting occurred outside the Artis Lounge and Restaurant, where a crowd had gathered for an album release party for Mello Buckzz, a rapper from Chicago’s East Side whose fanbase is largely women. She asked for prayers and expressed her anger and sadness on social media.

“My heart broke into so many pieces,” the artist said on Instagram hours after the shooting.

Mayor Brandon Johnson on Thursday said he was “certainly frustrated and angered” by what he called a “senseless and cowardice act of violence.”

Johnson also discussed a second mass shooting that took place overnight and left four people wounded on the Far South Side in the 600 block of East 133rd Street. In that shooting, which took place around 3:15 a.m., the victims were outside when someone opened fire. Two of the victims were listed in critical condition.

“Our hearts are with the families of the victims and we are praying for full recovery of all of those who were shot,” he said. “Shootings like these are a tragic reminder of how far we still have to go as a city.”

Snelling said the city issued a summary closure notice for Artis after the shooting.

Before it became Artis, the site housed the Hush Lounge, which was involved in a November 2022 mass shooting that left three people injured and one dead. Hush later surrendered its late-hour liquor license and shut down.

Ald. Brendan Reilly, whose 42nd Ward encompasses that location, is now calling on the city’s Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection to revoke Artis’ business license immediately and have it shut down permanently.

‘It is clear the new operators were dishonest with the City about their plans for the venue and
have now contributed to a devastating act of violence — just weeks after opening as a BYOB ‘restaurant,’” Reilly said in a statement.

The Black and LGBTQ-owned Creole restaurant, which opened in April, posted on Instagram that it was created as a safe space “where Black, Brown, Queer, and allied communities could gather, be celebrated, and feel at home in River North.”

They said, "what happened last night disrupted it in the most painful way.”

Artis — which describes itself as a safe space where “Black, Brown, Queer and allied communities could gather, be celebrated and feel at home” — later published a statement on social media acknowledging that “an act of violence occurred within the vicinity of our restaurant — and it shook us deeply.”

“Our hearts are with the victims and their loved ones,” the statement read. “We are working closely with authorities and taking steps to ensure the continued safety of our community. This moment is painful — but it only strengthens our commitment to holding space for those who need it most.”