CHICAGO — Late Wednesday night, assailants armed with at least one rifle rolled up outside an album release party for a local drill rapper in River North and opened fire on a crowd gathered on the sidewalk.

Within a matter of seconds, police Superintendent Larry Snelling said, the attackers were able to shoot an astonishing 18 people, killing four in a spot close to the center of the city as Chicago is preparing for the holiday weekend and playing host to a high-profile NASCAR road race.

The shooting was among the city’s worst in recent years and served as a warning that even though violent crime has fallen in recent years, gun violence — especially that fueled by rivalries on Chicago’s splintered gang landscape — remains stubbornly persistent.

“Shootings like these are a tragic reminder of how far we still have to go as a city,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said during a news conference on Thursday, calling the incident a cowardly “act of hate.”

City and state officials decried the mass shooting while calling it an isolated incident and asking citizens to send in information to investigators.

Family members of those killed spoke out against further violence, saying that retribution won’t bring back their loved ones.

“I don’t want another death,” said Andrea Williamson, whose son Devonte was killed and leaves behind a 3-year-old daughter. “That’s not going to bring my son back. I want the people who did it to get caught.”

Patrons were hit outside the Artis Restaurant and Lounge, which had been rented out for a private event, police said.

Local rapper Mello Buckzz, whose name is Melanie Doyle, according to court records, had planned the party, according to social media. Messages to Doyle and her attorney were not immediately returned.

For the past 15 years, Chicago’s drill rap scene has often been linked to fatal gun violence as rival artists with reputed gang ties trade insults and threats through their lyrics and social media taunts.

Police officials did not offer a motive, citing the pending investigation, but said it was clear that the venue was targeted.

“This wasn’t some random shooting where someone just decided that they were going to shoot at this particular group of people,” Snelling said. “Obviously, there’s a motive there.”

Snelling — who said the business that held the party has been temporarily closed — during the Thursday news conference described a chaotic scene as officers arrived and began trying to help the injured.

One of the weapons involved appeared to be a rifle, he said. Casings from a second weapon also were found.

Johnson said officials “will not rest” until the shooters are held accountable.

The shooting took place outside the lounge at around 11 p.m., when a large group of people were on the 300 block of West Chicago Avenue.

The medical examiner’s office on Thursday identified the four dead as Leon Andrew Henry, 25, and Williamson, 23, Aviance King, 27, and Taylor Walker, 26.

The rest of the victims, who ranged in age from 21 to 32, were in various conditions at area hospitals, police said. At least two were believed to be in critical condition.

No one was in custody as of Thursday afternoon.

Police said a dark vehicle drove past, fired into the crowd and drove away. The car circled the block and its occupants fired, apparently targeting a line of people standing outside Artis, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation.

Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Garien Gatewood said none of the victims are residents of the River North neighborhood.

Johnson, Snelling and Gatewood all credited the actions of the first responders to the scene, and the superintendent said Chicago Police Department detectives and agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are working to gather evidence and analyze ballistics. Snelling added it wasn’t clear how many shooters were present.

In a post to Instagram Thursday, Mello Buckzz said one of the four people killed was her significant other.

On her Facebook page — followed by 89,000 people — Mello Buckzz appears to claim affiliation with the NLMB, a gang faction with territory in the South Shore neighborhood that’s been linked to several murders in recent years. Among the most high-profile NLMB associates is Chicago drill rapper G Herbo, who collaborated with Mello Buckzz in a song released in 2024.

Members and associates of the NLMB — an acronym for “No Limit Muskegon Boyz” and “Never Leave My Brothers” — were previously linked to another quadruple murder in the South Shore in 2017 and another brazen daytime slaying in a South Loop barbershop in 2021.

The group was also tied to a 2021 mass shooting at a rented retail store in the Ashburn neighborhood, according to police sources. Two gunmen opened fire on attendees of a birthday party, leaving one man dead and seven other people injured.

Earlier this year, Doyle was sentenced to probation for allegedly attacking a woman over what her lawyer in court documents described as “diss threats” from the complaining witness.

Although court records listed Henry, one of the decedents, as an associate of the NLMB and the Black P Stones, Henry’s mother, Tiffany Harris, said her son “wasn’t one of them types of kids that are just shooting and robbing people.”

Harris, 49, had “never” been concerned for Henry’s safety and didn’t know of his plans to attend the album release party, she said. Then she got a phone call about the shooting.

Williamson, who was also killed, had been dating Doyle for a short while before the shooting, said his mother, Andrea Williamson.

She said she saw her son leave the house Wednesday night “dressed up” but didn’t know where he was going.

The crime scene had been cleared from outside the establishment by Thursday morning as commuters made their way past the Chicago Brown and Purple Line stop.

After the shooting, social media began filling up with accounts of people who said they had been at the party, including a woman who apparently was a DJ for the event.

Using the name “sukigeez” on Instagram, the woman said she had just left the building when the shooting broke out.

“My brother & I decided to go across the street to get some food & heard the gun shots and saw people running away from where I was just playing music,” the message said. “Honestly it was a great night. No drama. A celebration. I was really happy for Mello.”

The shooting rattled the surrounding neighborhood.

Lizzie Zimmermann, a 28-year-old marketing consultant, was getting ready for bed in her 17th-floor apartment when she heard the distinct cracking of gunshots.

“It sounded like someone unloading a magazine. It was just a rapid, like, ‘pop, pop, pop, pop, pop,’” Zimmermann said. “It was silent for maybe 15, 30 seconds, and then I just heard a million sirens.”

When she looked out her window, about two blocks east of the establishment, the entire street was flashing with police lights. She walked past the scene Thursday morning and saw trails of blood on the sidewalk.

“I was definitely worried. It was scary,” Zimmermann said. “It wasn’t even that late at night. I mean, anybody could still be on the street at 11 o’clock.”

The 42nd Ward is subject to a late-hour liquor license moratorium, according to Ald. Brendan Reilly, and Artis had applied for an incidental liquor license along with a food license.

That liquor license hadn’t been approved yet, he said, so Artis had been operating under a BYOB policy.

“The city needs to take a very hard look at our BYOB policy and consider some significant changes to make those much, much harder to use,” he said.

Reilly added that Artis had been given a draft plan of operation as it was working toward a liquor license, which prohibited the use of promoters that publicized parties like the one held Wednesday night, he said.

Reilly said he and CPD officials had requested a summary closure for Artis, and said he would ask the liquor commissioner to reject the restaurant’s liquor license and ensure that the business “never opens again.”

Owners of the business couldn’t be reached for comment in response to Reilly’s call for the business to stay closed.

Johnson during the news conference said that the owners had “demonstrated thoughtfulness around the business plan.”

Artis was licensed to open in February 2025, according to records from the city’s Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection.

In a statement posted to social media, management said they were “deeply” shaken by the shooting and offered condolences to the victims and their families. The lounge, which opened April 10, bills itself as a safe space for Black, Brown and queer people to “gather, be celebrated and feel at home in River North.”

“What happened last night disrupted it in the most painful way,” the statement read.

Another fatal shooting occurred at the same address in November 2022, when the property housed a nightclub, records show.

That shooting left one man dead and three other people wounded. County court records show a man was charged with illegal gun possession in connection with the shooting, but no one was ever charged with murder.

Wednesday’s attack came as Chicago has seen significant dips in violent crime in recent years.

It was one of the first mass shootings downtown with double-digit victims since 11 people were shot outside a McDonald’s at Chicago and State Street in 2022. Two people were killed.

Gov. JB Pritzker called the news of the shooting “devastating” in a post on social media on Thursday.

“Even as we’ve seen crime diminishing, we still can and must do better to keep Illinoisans safe,” he said.

(Tribune reporters William Tong and Kate Armanini contributed to this report.)

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