Updated on March 13 with names of two victims
“We’ve got a bad scene here,” said a glum-faced Evanston Police Chief Demitrous Cook, beginning a briefing with reporters after a shooting left two people dead outside a residence on the 1800 block of Hovland Court earlier today.
Police received a 911 call from a citizen about 11:45 a.m. about shots fired at 1811 Hovland Ct., the Chief said.
Officers arrived on the scene and found two men critically injured and another person injured in the leg, he said.
Four ambulances arrived at the scene, with the victims taken to different hospitals, Chief Cook said.
Police learned later that two of the gunshot victims from the 1811 Hovland Court residence, whom Chief Cook described as “young men,” died from their injuries. The names of the victims have not been released.
Chief Cook said upward of 10 rounds were fired in the incident. He said the shooting wasn’t a drive by. “We believe they (the shooters) walked up and confronted the men who were sitting on the porch. And that’s all speculation right now,” he told reporters.
“We’ve got plenty of evidence that will probably lead us in the proper direction as to how it went down.”
Directing his message outward, Chief Cook said “I just want the community to know that we are working diligently with NORTAF (the North Regional Major Crimes Task Force) to bring this crime to resolution. We don’t believe there’s anything that the public has to worry about in addition to this location. But we will work diligently to bring these criminals to trial.”
“It’s truly not good for our community,” Chief Cook told a reporter following the briefing.
The Chief said, “We haven’t recovered any weapons.” As for motive, “I don’t want to speculate,” said the Chief. “We don’t really know what the motive is right now. We’ve got the North Regional Major Crimes Task Force working to bring resolution to this crime.”
On March 13, Evanston Police released a statement identifying the victims who were killed as Jose Francisco Sanchez Guerrero, 21, of Glenview and Demarcus Anthony Cokley, 20, of Des Plaines. The statement said a third victim, an 18-year-old male Evanston resident, suffered several gunshot wounds and was treated at Evanston Hospital.