Victims recovering from late-summer mass shooting in Washington Park as police look for answers

Demetrius Sandifer came to Washington Park on Saturday to see some old friends. Sandifer, 42, described the gathering in the park, a block or two north of University of Chicago Hospital, as a reunion for former residents of the Robert Taylor Homes, where he’d lived until 2005. He was talking to his girlfriend in the park, he remembered, when he heard shooting start behind him. “I (saw) the fire come out of the gun,” he said. “That’s how close I was.” Sandifer was one of 15 people shot in what ultimately became the largest mass shooting Chicago has seen this year. According to initial police information reviewed by the Tribune, a pair of shooters dressed in black and wearing ski masks had approached the gathering just after 11:30 p.m. and fired from across Cottage Grove Avenue into Washington Park. Per the initial information, someone shot back from inside the park, and officers later found two sets of shell casings in the park and across the street, including rifle casings.

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