Downtown again rocked by violence; Mayor Lightfoot calls mass shooting on Near North Side a 'horrible tragedy' - Chicago Tribune

Paramedics transport a person who was wounded by gunfire at the scene of a mass shooting near Chicago Avenue and State Street on May 19, 2022, in Chicago.

Violence again flared downtown late Thursday when nine people were shot, two fatally, near a fast-food restaurant and CTA station on the Near North Side, a shooting that came just days after the fatal shooting of a teenager near The Bean during a mass gathering of young people last weekend.

Both Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Superintendent David Brown immediately blamed Thursday’s shooting on parents not keeping track of their children and a flood of guns entering the city, many carried by young people who now use them in fights that in years past may not have been deadly.

Lightfoot also again called for a visible police presence downtown, including fixed posts at the corner where the shooting Thursday took place at Chicago Avenue and State Street, and at the Chicago Avenue stop on the CTA Red Line.

Brown said police had in fact instantly created a fixed post in the area and at the CTA station in question, in addition to roving units.

Thursday in the 800 block of North State Street outside the Chicago Avenue subway station and a McDonald’s.

Around lunchtime Friday, State and Chicago was packed with people.

A worker sweeps up broken glass from a door of a McDonald's restaurant in Chicago after a mass shooting Thursday night.

“It’s not based off anything related to Millennium Park,” Brown said, including the use of police resources there compared to other places in the center of the city.

The person detained in Thursday’s shooting has not yet been identified as police are working with prosecutors to charge the possible shooter, Brown said.

Items used to treat victims from Thursday night's shooting on the sidewalk near Chicago Avenue and State Street on May 20, 2022.

People watch officers and paramedics work the scene where two people were shot and killed near Chicago Avenue and State Street late Thursday.

Shortly before then, responders were seen removing people — at least two who appeared to be badly injured — from an area between the McDonald’s and the subway entrance on the northeast corner of State and Chicago.

Officers put up police tape at the scene where a number of people were shot, two fatally, near Chicago Avenue and State Street on Thursday.

The scene where at least one person has been wounded by gunfire near the intersection of Chicago and State