The shooting of four people Saturday in Oak Park occurred during a funeral procession for a North Side man who was shot and killed in the Edgewater neighborhood earlier this month, police sources and the man’s family said.
Around 1 p.m. Saturday, the funeral procession for Jamal Goings, a 33-year-old man shot to death May 23, was traveling west in the 900 block of Madison Street, according to Oak Park police and Goings’ family. A source with knowledge of the investigation identified Goings as connected to the Guttaville faction of the Gangster Disciples, which claims territory in the area where Goings was killed.
Goings last month was found lying face down in the alley of the 6000 block of North Kenmore Avenue shortly after 4 p.m. He was shot in the back and taken to a hospital in Evanston, where he was pronounced dead, Chicago police previously said.
In a brief phone interview Monday, Goings’ mother said she did not know what precipitated Saturday’s shooting. She added that her son was the father of two young girls.
“They’re OK for now, but not too good,” Renette Goings said of her granddaughters.
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Asked how she was faring since her son’s death, she said, “I’m making it.”
A white pickup truck pulled up next to the procession, and someone inside opened fire, striking four people, all of whom are from Chicago. Two of the victims were hospitalized in critical condition, while two others suffered non-life-threatening injuries, according to Oak Park police.
“While there is no indication of any further threat to the community stemming from this incident, any act of gun violence such as this does great harm to our collective sense of safety,” Oak Park police Chief Shatonya Johnson said in a statement.
Oak Park police added that it’s “standard protocol” for funeral homes to alert law enforcement of “potentially high-risk funeral processions” but no alert was issued ahead of Saturday’s funeral.
Cook County court records show Goings in 2019 pleaded guilty to aggravated fleeing and was sentenced to 14 months in prison. A year earlier, Goings was sentenced to 30 months in prison after he pleaded guilty to aggravated unlawful use of a weapon. Records show Goings was arrested several more times on various narcotics charges.
“He’d been on the radar in the past,” a police source said, adding that officers discovered a gun on Goings’ person when he was found shot last month.
The source said a faction of the Black P. Stones based in Uptown is believed to be in conflict with the Gangster Disciples faction.
