At least four people were killed and 14 others wounded in a drive-by mass shooting outside the Artis Lounge nightclub in Chicago's River North neighborhood on Wednesday night, police said.
Around 11 p.m., Chicago police said a dark SUV drove past the nightclub in the 300 block of West Chicago Avenue. Police said three people inside the vehicle fired shots into a crowd of people standing outside, News.Az reports, citing CBS News.
The crowd was leaving the nightclub following an album release party for rapper Mello Buckzz.
Chicago police confirmed four people died, including two men, 24 and 25 years old and two women.
The victims injured in the shooting range in age from 21 to 32 years old. At least four people were listed in critical to serious condition at local hospitals.
City officials confirmed there were multiple shooters.
Rapper Mello Buckzz released a statement on social media saying in part, "Prayers up for all my sisters god please wrap yo arms around every last one of them." She then went on to say, "Feel like everything just weighing down on me...all I can do is talk to god and pray."
Pastor Donovan Price said the city spoke to CBS News Chicago after arriving on the chaotic scene.
"The worst, the worst I've seen. People wanting to find their other people, find who was alive, finding who was you know where their phones were because they dropped them in the chaos, so they couldn't even call, or couldn't even find their car keys. It's, it's something that you wouldn't expect to find in the city, we have a lot of shootings, but nothing, nothing like this."
No arrests have been made. Police are searching for the three shooters.
Police are investigating.
The same block was also the scene of a mass shooting in November 2022, when the same nightclub was known as Hush Lounge. One person was killed and three others wounded after a group that had been thrown out of Hush started fighting.
Police shut down the Hush nightclub after that shooting, and Artis Lounge later opened in the same location.
