Investigators have released few details beyond a gray sedan, recovered shell casings and a 5 a.m. timeline that ended with Antwan Washington dead in his home.
CHICAGO, Ill. — Chicago police are investigating who opened fire into an Englewood apartment before dawn March 28, killing 45-year-old Antwan Washington as he sat inside the home he shared with his fiancée and children, authorities and family members said.
What makes the case stand out is not only the violence, but the setting. Washington was not outside on the street when he was shot, according to police and his family. He was inside his own living room, preparing for work, while relatives slept nearby. Days later, police had not publicly named suspects, explained a motive or said whether detectives believe the family was targeted. That uncertainty has left Washington’s loved ones grieving while also trying to understand whether the shooting was deliberate, mistaken or tied to something investigators have not yet disclosed.
The first public timeline placed the shooting just after 5 a.m. in the 5700 block of South May Street, near 57th Street in the Englewood neighborhood. Initial police statements said someone inside a gray sedan fired shots into the apartment and then drove north on May Street. Washington suffered a gunshot wound to the head and was pronounced dead on the scene. The Cook County medical examiner later identified him as Antwan Washington, 45. Family interviews filled in what police bulletins could not. Jennifer Lacey said Washington had been on the couch, drinking coffee and watching TV before work. She and their children were asleep. Their 11-year-old son woke up to bullet holes, and Lacey said she went to alert Washington, only to realize he had already been fatally struck.
As the case moved from emergency response to detective work, more details emerged but not all of them lined up neatly. One police report described two people getting out of a gray four-door sedan and firing handguns into the apartment. Public television reports repeated a simpler version, saying someone inside a gray sedan opened fire. Investigators have not publicly reconciled those descriptions. Lacey said police recovered 16 shell casings outside the home, and television video showed officers photographing the street and collecting evidence. She also pointed to a nearby police POD camera, raising hope that investigators may have usable footage of the vehicle, the shooters’ movements or the route taken after the attack. So far, police have not said publicly what that camera captured, whether video has been reviewed in full or whether detectives believe Washington himself was the intended target.
In the absence of clear answers, family members have built the public portrait of Washington. Lacey said the couple had been together for 12 years and were preparing to marry in 2026. She described him as the provider in the household, a man focused on work and his children. A fundraiser organized after his death says Washington worked as a manager at Chipotle and leaves behind five children, along with parents, siblings and his fiancée. The campaign says the family now faces both funeral costs and the need for longer-term stability. It also frames the killing as a rupture of ordinary life: a father at home, a work shift ahead, children nearby and then a burst of gunfire that ended all of it. Those specifics have sharpened public sympathy because they place the violence in a domestic setting where routine should have been strongest.
That context has also changed the immediate stakes for the survivors. Lacey said the family had moved into the apartment building in December, hoping for a fresh chapter. She said they kept to themselves, avoided conflict and could not understand why their unit would be hit. Her concern now is not only emotional, but practical. She has said she wants to relocate because she no longer feels safe staying in the city without knowing why the shooting happened. That reaction points to a broader consequence often left out of police summaries: a homicide investigation does not end when the gunfire stops. It can upend housing plans, child care, work schedules and a family’s sense of safety. In this case, those pressures are playing out as Lacey tries to comfort children who woke up inside the scene of the attack.
For investigators, the next steps are likely to center on surveillance review, witness interviews, forensic testing of shell casings and any effort to map the sedan’s route before and after the shooting. Authorities have not announced charges, a court date or a suspect description beyond the vehicle. They also have not said whether detectives are treating the shooting as a targeted attack, a gang-related case, a dispute or a mistaken strike. Until those answers come, the public record remains narrow: a time, a place, shell casings, a gray sedan and a dead father in his living room. Lacey has used her interviews to urge that Washington not be reduced to those bare facts. “He was just a great man,” she said, describing someone whose conversations could lift people up and whose absence now feels unreal.
As of Friday, no arrests had been publicly announced and the motive remained unknown. The next clear turning point will come if detectives release surveillance details, identify suspects or make an arrest, while Washington’s family continues funeral planning and weighs whether to leave the home where the shooting happened.
Author note: Last updated April 3, 2026.