GANG VIOLENCE; 2 KILLED,8 WOUNDED AT MEMORIAL

Two people were killed and eight others were wounded May 7, 2017, in an attack near the site of a memorial where a man was slain earlier in the day in the Brighton Park neighborhood, police said. It happened in the 2600 block of West 46th Place, police said.

The men and women gathered at a makeshift memorial Sunday, down the block from where a man in his 20s had been found shot to death between parked cars in the Southwest Side's Brighton Park neighborhood.

While the mourners stood in the late afternoon sun amid heart-shaped balloon, liquor bottles and candles, two men with rifles emerged from an alley around 5:20 p.m. and began firing, hitting 10 people and killing two of them.

It had been just 12 hours since the man, 26-year-old Daniel Cardova, had been killed.  He too had been shot by two men with rifles, according to Chicago police.

First Deputy Superintendent Kevin Navarro called the mass shooting “another brazen act of gang violence on Chicago's streets.”

Another police official, Deputy Chief Kevin Ryan, said gang and tactical teams have been deployed to the area, where gangs have been increasingly using military-style weapons against each other, according to a Tribune analysis earlier this year.

"We have a fairly good idea who we're looking for," Ryan said. "We have a fairly good idea of the conflict involved. And right now we're trying to saturate the area."

As of Monday morning, no one was reported in custody.

The two killed at the memorial were a man about 25 and a 29-year-old woman.  The man died at the scene, and the woman died at Stroger Hospital, officials said.

The eight injured included six men and two women: a 25-year-old man shot in the right hip and right elbow and in good condition at Mount Sinai Hospital; a 26-year-old man shot in the right leg, in good condition at Stroger; a 23-year-old man shot in the right leg, in good condition at Stroger; a 26-year-old man shot in the right leg, in good condition at Stroger; a 26-year-old man shot in both ankles, in good condition at Stroger; a 19-year-old woman shot in the leg, in good condition at Mount Sinai Hospital; a 25-year-old woman shot in the right arm, in good condition at Stroger; a 23-year-old man with injuries to his leg, in good condition at Stroger.

The shooting of Cardova happened around 4:30 a.m. Sunday in the 2500 block of West 46th Place, according to police.  Cardova was found lying in the street and was pronounced dead at 4:42 a.m., according to the medical examiner's office.

The memorial to him grew during the day outside a one-story building not far from where he was shot.

After the afternoon shooting at the memorial, neighbors on porches craned their heads toward the scene as about two dozen officers scoured the area.

Blocks from the blue flashing lights, children ran toward an ice cream truck and jumped in a bounce house, seemingly unaware of the violence that had just taken place.  Closer to the scene, a group of young men yelled at people in passing cars, as well as reporters and police.

When a police SUV drove to 46th Street and Rockwell, one of the men tried to open the car door. As the officer chastised the group, another man held up his phone and shouted, "I got you on camera!"

Officers got out of the SUV and ordered the men to leave. As the group walked north, the man with the camera phone backpedaled and yelled, "I got your face on camera!"

A man wearing a black Chicago Bulls hat spoke with investigators at the scene before quickly walking away. He said two of his children had been taken to Stroger and died in the afternoon shooting.

"I hate violence. I don't know how I feel but I know how to get even," said the man, who declined to identify himself.

The shootings come five days after two Deering District tactical officers were struck by rifle fire in the neighboring Back of the Yards, southeast of Brighton Park.

Navarro said "at this point'' police do not believe the Sunday shootings on 46th Place are connected to the officers' shooting.

Ald. Raymond Lopez, 15th, expressed his frustration with the third rifle shooting in a week and called on neighbors to be vigilant.

"The wake-up call has been here. It's time to act. It's time for each and every one of us to start looking at what's going on on our block, identifying who is a gang member who's selling drugs and who is supporting them in our communities,'' Lopez said.

The neighborhood consists of well-kept three-story brick homes. In recent years, the number of gang shooting seems to have been on the rise, residents said.

Michelle, who has a 16-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son, said the violence is especially menacing because it's close to Shields Elementary School, a few blocks north.

"The one I'm worried most about is my son because he will be mistaken (for a gang member) and he is in that age group," she said, acting not to be named.