Evanston police say two groups of men engaged in a shootout early this morning in the 1900 block of Emerson Street.
Evanston police say two groups of men engaged in a shootout early this morning in the 1900 block of Emerson Street.
Police Chief Richard Eddington told residents at a 5th Ward community meeting this evening that between nine and 11 shots were exchanged — leaving bullet holes in homes and cars on both sides of the street.
Eddington says police have arrested one person in connection with the incident who’s been charged with aggravated fleeing and resisting arrest.
He said the shootout was apparently the result of a dispute between two groups of drug dealers.
There were no reports of injuries in the exchange of gunfire, but the chief said that innocent residents of the neighborhood easily could have been injured or killed in the incident.
At the meeting Eddington distributed copies of maps showing shots fired and man with a gun calls that police have responded to since the start of last year. (An interactive map showing the same data is available here.)
The map shows the vast majority of shooting incidents taking place in the 2nd, 5th, 8th and 9th wards, and he urged residents to help police by reporting suspicious activity on their block.
Eddington said the latest incident appears to have “ratcheted up” the level of violence, in that nearly all the previous incidents involved drive-by shootings with just one assailant firing shots, while in today’s incident two sides in the dispute were shooting at each other.
Update 5/23/09 — More detail in this report: One arrested after high speed chase