Police are investigating after a man was shot early Wednesday morning during a fight outside Terminal 2 of Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. NBC Chicago’s Randy Gyllenhaal reports.
A possible motive and new details are unfolding after a shooting broke out earlier this month at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.
According to a police report obtained by NBC Chicago, authorities were responding to a call of a fight just before 1 a.m. on March 12 in the lower level 2A terminal at the airport.
As they arrived, officers found one victim on the ground near lower level 2C and called for first responders as they then discovered a second victim. One of the victims had been shot multiple times.
One of the victims told police he was on a Spirit Airlines flight from Houston to Chicago and was on his way to meet his ride just before the shooting. After he exited the plane and walked to the escalator to move to the lower level, he told authorities he saw a black van. About six or seven men exited the vehicle and began "walking toward lower 2C."
The two victims were walking near each other toward 2A. The victim told police he watched through the window as the group of men, all wearing black masks, followed him until he approached 2A.
The man said that's when he was jumped. The group then hit him in the torso and head area, he told police, noting they were trying to take his backpack, which contained $1,000 in cash and a "white gold necklace," with an estimated value of $30,000.
"When the offenders saw that he was not going to just give up and give them the bag someone said 'Go get the pipe,'" the police report states.
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That's when someone started shooting.
One victim , a 25-year-old man, was shot in the right thigh and left leg as the group grabbed the bag with the money and necklace and fled the scene.
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The man was transported to a nearby hospital where he was last listed in stable condition, police said.
A window leading to the airport passenger pickup area was overtaken by shattered glass and a bullet hole.
The ramp to Arrivals at the airport was closed for hours due to the shooting.
One traveler who just had just flown into O'Hare and was at baggage claim said the news was "shocking."
"We had no idea, nobody informed us, we had no announcements coming in," said Pravhu Vala Shanmugam, who arrived on a flight from Los Angeles and was collecting his bags. “We actually called somebody to come pick us up at door 1F. Obviously we didn’t know this was not going to be a place where they can come in. We have to go up to the departure level and ask them to come over there.”
