The shooting happened near the office of Ald. Raymond Lopez, 15th, who sparked a firestorm this past spring when he said "no innocent lives were lost" after two people were killed and eight others wounded when two masked gunmen with rifles opened fire on a group congregating at a makeshift memorial for a man who had been slain in an earlier shooting.



Community members gathered at both ends of the crime scene on Friday to gawk, check on their loved ones and find out what happened.



Maria Mier, who lives nearby, said she saw a rush of ambulances and heard what sounded like "a machine gun."



An EMS Plan I was called on Friday, sending at least six ambulances to the scene, but the plan was called off a short time later when police took over the incident as a crime scene, said Chicago Fire Department Cmd. Frank Velez. None of the multiple victims was taken to hospitals, Velez said.



Two men on the scene, who asked not to be identified, said they heard what sounded like a rifle firing and a car chase.



One of the men said, in Spanish, that he was eating dinner about half a mile away, near 47th and Kedzie Avenue, when he heard "at least 15 shots, and (I) said (to myself), 'They've killed someone.'"



Marina Carbajal, 19, was driving home with her mother from the gas station when the gunmen started shooting after they'd stopped at a red light. Carbajal, who was behind the wheel, said she at first ducked down, then covered her mother.



"One second we were talking, and then we heard the gunshots," Carbajal said. As soon as the gunfire stopped, Carbajal drove off, not wanting to get caught in another round.



In the hours after the shooting, loved ones turned out to check on the dead. A woman walked up to police at the crime scene tape and asked if she could come through.



Police blocked her and an officer said, "I'm sorry for your loss."



"They killed one of my son's friends," she told them. Moments later, her son ran toward the crime scene tape. He came up to the police officer, tried to get permission to pass and burst into tears.



As police stood guard nearby and more friends and relatives began pulling up at the scene, one young man held a cellphone in front of his mouth and cried.



"I just seen him," he said, over and over, in reference to a slain friend.



Another man, who was pacing around the crime scene tape, angrily walked up to police officers on the other side and criticized them for "not doing anything" to stop the violence. He cursed at the officers and said they don't do anything.



As he spoke, a group of residents talked about the neighborhood. One of the men gestured toward the cursing man to illustrate his point that it had changed for the worse "with idiots like this."



The angry man turned around to confront the group and said they shouldn't talk about him behind his back. He said that, as Latinos, they should stick together.



"Do you think I like it that I was sleeping and they called to tell me my cousin's dead?" he asked, confronting them.



The other man told him he shouldn't express his grief by approaching them in such a confrontational, "gangbanging" style. After a few more words, the man, who said he'd been drinking, ambled away.



gpratt@chicagotribune.com



Twitter @royalpratt