Chicago police said two men were outside when a group approached and gunfire broke out near 78th Street.
CHICAGO — A double homicide investigation was underway Wednesday after two men were shot late Tuesday in Chatham, where police said five males approached the victims, gunfire followed and the group ran from the block.
The attack happened in the 7800 block of South Calumet Avenue at 11:21 p.m. and left one man dead at the scene and another dead after he was taken to a hospital. The shooting quickly became one of the deadliest incidents in a violent overnight stretch on Chicago’s South Side. Detectives were still working to establish the motive, identify the suspects and determine exactly how the confrontation unfolded before the shots were fired.
According to police, the two victims were standing outside when the group of five males came up to them. Officers said an encounter took place, then the men were shot. A 37-year-old victim suffered a gunshot wound to the chest and was pronounced dead at the scene. A 44-year-old victim was shot multiple times and taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he was later pronounced dead. Police said the five people who approached the men fled on foot toward 79th Street. Area Two detectives were assigned to investigate, and by Wednesday afternoon no one had been taken into custody.
The available public record offered a narrow set of facts and little explanation. Police had not said whether the encounter was brief or whether the victims and the group knew each other before meeting on the block. They also had not said whether the shooting was targeted, whether the attackers exchanged words with the victims, or whether any witness could describe specific clothing, weapons or a direction of travel beyond the run toward 79th Street. One of the most important unanswered details was how many of the five people actually fired. Police said that remained unclear, a sign that investigators were still sorting out witness accounts and physical evidence from the scene.
The shooting took place in Chatham, a South Side neighborhood where residents have long pushed for stronger safety measures while also trying to preserve the area’s identity as a stable residential community. On this night, the violence was part of a larger pattern of emergencies that kept officers and medics moving across the South Side. Earlier, in Englewood, a 19-year-old man and a 22-year-old woman were wounded near 67th and Halsted after a confrontation tied to a fight, police said. Hours later, two men were stabbed on a CTA Red Line train near the 47th Street station. The Chatham killings were not linked publicly to those incidents, but they underscored the intensity of the overnight violence.
The investigation now moves into the methodical stage common in Chicago homicide cases. Detectives are expected to collect and test forensic evidence, review available surveillance video, trace any witness leads and work with the Cook County medical examiner as the two victims are formally identified and their deaths documented. If investigators recover clear video or reliable witness descriptions, the next step could be the release of suspect details or a request for public help. If arrests are made, prosecutors would then decide what charges to file based on evidence about who fired and who took part in the confrontation. As of Wednesday, no hearing had been scheduled because no suspect had been charged.
What stands out in the case is how quickly the shooting appears to have unfolded. Two men were outside on a neighborhood block late at night. A group approached. Within moments, one victim was dead at the scene and another was fighting for life on the way to the hospital. By the time officers began building the first timeline, the people police wanted to question were gone. That left the case resting on the usual early pieces of a city homicide inquiry: shell casings, camera angles, neighborhood witnesses, hospital records and the effort to turn scattered details into a prosecutable account of what happened.
By late Wednesday, the victims had not been publicly named, the suspects had not been found and the motive remained unknown. The next key development will likely be a police announcement identifying the dead men, describing the five people sought in the shooting or disclosing whether investigators have recovered video that sharpens the timeline from 11:21 p.m. Tuesday.
Author note: Last updated March 26, 2026.