Man shot and critically wounded in robbery on heels of seven other attacks

By Lauren Victory, Tim McNicholas

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    CHICAGO (WBBM) — A horrifying shooting in the Lincoln Park neighborhood left a man fighting for his life early Friday, and it may have all been over a cellphone.

The robbery happened just blocks away from where a DePaul University student was also robbed.

Police Friday evening said in a community alert that it is part of a pattern of eight “related” attacks and robberies in the Lincoln Park and Lakeview areas within the past 48 hours. But later Friday evening, Chicago Police News Affairs said the shooting was only connected to one robbery targeting the DePaul student a few minutes earlier, and the others were part of a different pattern.

A man was walking on Wayne Avenue near Webster Avenue around 3 a.m. when a man with a gun demanded the victim’s phone. The corner is saturated with cameras, and police are begging anyone in the area who has footage around 3 a.m. to submit anything that looks suspicious.

CBS 2’s Lauren Victory has obtained video and still images of the crime, which shows the man who shot the victim getting out of a white sedan that has just rounded the corner of Wayne and Webster avenues and hiding behind the wall of a building — peeking around the corner as the victim walks down the street.

As the victim approached the corner, the robber came out of hiding and pointed his gun at him. The victim gave the man his bag, then grabbed for the gun, and both fell to the ground as they struggled over the gun.

A second robber with a gun rushed up; and as the victim was struggling with the first robber, one of them can be heard demanding the passcode to his phone. Then the first robber shot the man and took his cell phone.

As the victim was lying on the ground, the robber again asked him for his passcode before shooting him a second time. After asking the victim for his passcode again, the victim tells him some numbers before screaming in pain, and the robber shoots him a third time while he’s still lying in the street.

Police said the victim was taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center in critical condition, with two gunshot wounds to the back, and one gunshot wound to the head.

Family late Friday identified the young man who was shot as Dakotah Earley. A GoFundMe was set up by his family, who said he was a 23-year-old culinary art student.

“He is a gentle giant and would’ve given the shirt off his back to anyone in need,” Earley’s brother wrote on the GoFundMe.

Reed Fellars ran outside to help upon hearing gunshots.

“There’s a man groaning on the ground and his backpack and shirt are up, and there’s no exit wounds and there’s blood,” Fellars said.

Fellars wishes he could have done more to stop the shooters.

“He roared right past me as I’m coming this way,” he said. “I had every chance to get in my van, pull it out, and block him. That didn’t occur to me, and I’m reliving that.”

All of the bloody aftermath that Fellars witnessed will replay over and over in his head.

“I’m angry that I reacted with a tourniquet and let the shooter drive right by me,” he said.

“I think more than anything, I’m angry,” added a man named Dave, whose security camera caught the heartbreaking crime on video. “I’m angry at the city. I’m angry at our leaders.”

But Dave, who asked us not to use his full name, didn’t need video to see what happened.

He heard two gunshots around 3 a.m., and then looked out his window and saw the third shot with his own eyes.

“He was no threat,” Dave said. “The guy was laying on the floor face down – laying on the ground face down, and the guy shot him again – just for spite. I don’t know.”

That was when Dave ran outside to try to help the victim.

“Then I could hear him, you know, having a hard time breathing. I told help, you know, just that help was on the way,” Dave said. “I had a first-aid kit I grabbed out of the car. I started opening it up, but I saw there was a police officer already on the way down the block, so I waited for them.”

Around the same time of that shooting, just a few blocks away near Clifton and Fullerton avenues, a DePaul University student was robbed on campus, when a white sedan pulled up alongside him, a passenger got out, and demanded his belongings at gunpoint.

The student was not injured.

Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd), whose ward includes the location where the man was shot, said police have told him the two robberies are connected. In a community alert late Friday, police said they do believe those two robberies are related.

Police earlier issued a community alert that also referred to these robberies at the following times and locations as “related” to the shooting:

• At 10:45 p.m. Tuesday in the 2900 block of North Clark Street;

• At 10:50 p.m. Tuesday in the 2600 block of North Bosworth Avenue;

• At 11 p.m. Tuesday in the 1100 block of West Wellington Avenue;

• At 10 p.m. Wednesday in the 3000 block of North Racine Avenue;

• At 10:26 p.m. Wednesday in the 2600 block of North Racine Avenue;

• At 12:30 a.m. Friday in the 700 block of West Aldine Avenue.

But police News Affairs later said the above robberies belonged to a separate pattern.

CBS 2’s Victory asked another man in the neighborhood if he feels safe. His response was, “As a guy, not too bad.”

However, that man – also a Lincoln Park resident – said he would feel better with more police around. He said he too was robbed at gunpoint about a year and a half ago in nearly the same spot.

“Without police, it’s going to happen again and again and again,” he said.

Ald. Hopkins said had conversations with Chicago Police Friday about increasing patrols, and police have done so.

Hopkins also said he has also been in contact with DePaul University police.

Hopkins said the victim of the shooting went through surgery on Friday and is “fighting for his life.” He was out of surgery by the late afternoon, but remained in critical condition and was unable to communicate.

Earley’s brother likewise wrote that the young man is “currently in critical condition and is in the fight for his life.”

“This is a family neighborhood,” said Brian Comer, president of the Sheffield Neighborhood Association.

Comer said the neighborhood group had already been working with the Near North (18th) District on ways to deter crime – and now that work is even more important.

“it’s an opportunity for the neighborhood to take hold of itself, take responsibility, and work

with our partners that are here serving and protecting us,” Comer said.

Comer said some people have even discussed hiring private security to patrol their neighborhood, which is what is happening already in one part of Bucktown. But he feels the better approach is to work with police.

No one was in custody Friday afternoon following the incidents. Anyone with information is asked to call Area Three detectives at (312) 744-8263.

There will also be a neighborhood meeting with Near North District police at 5 p.m. Tuesday at The Warehouse, 1419 W. Fullerton Ave.

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