By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
Three years after a fatal shooting in which one person was killed and three others were wounded at a Chicago night spot, four people were gunned down and 14 more were wounded late Wednesday.
In the Windy City, it’s a bad breeze which seems to blow past 311 W. Chicago Avenue. When that was the location of a the now-defunct Hush Chicago nightclub in 2022, the fatal shooting occurred outside. The Chicago Sun-Times is recalling that the business was subsequently deemed a “public safety threat” and was shut down by the city. This past April, a new establishment opened at the same location, called Artis Restaurant and Lounge.
The shooting was preceded by what the newspaper called “an album release party” for local “drill rapper” Mello Buckzz. The rapper had apparently already left, but she released a statement expressing sorrow for the victims, according to CBS News.
It was not clear who the intended target was, but the victims included two men and two women, according to published reports. Spent rifle and pistol shell casings were recovered.
Mello Buckzz is the stage name of 24-year-old Melanie Doyle, according to WXIA News in Atlanta. The station described her as “a rising voice in Midwest hip-hop.”
According to the popular website HeyJackass.com, Chicago has already seen 173 people fatally shot this year and another 706 wounded. There have been 206 homicides so far in 2025, and the June total saw 28 people shot and killed, down 56 percent from the same month in 2024. June also saw a 57 percent decline in the number of people shot and wounded over lasty year’s total.
A look at the HeyJackass tallies for June over the past several years shows a decline in the number of slayings for the month.
The Chicago Tribune is calling this the worst mass shooting in the downtown area since 2022 when 11 people were shot outside of a McDonald’s restaurant.
While Illinois has licensed concealed carry, the state still enforces some of the strongest gun control laws in the nation, yet violent crime persists, albeit at a slower pace.
