71-year-old man shot and killed outside elementary school in Chicago's Chinatown

Maina Chen
·2 min read

An elderly 71-year-old man was killed from gunfire in Chicago’s Chinatown on Tuesday.

The incident: The shooting occurred in broad daylight at around 12:30 p.m. on the 200 block of West 23rd Place near John C. Haines Elementary School, according to WGN-TV.

  • The Chicago Sun-Times reported that the victim’s name was Woom Sing Tse.

  • Police said that Tse was reportedly on his way to buy a newspaper from a store in Chinatown when a man in a silver sedan drove by and fired at him from the car. The gunman then left the car to fire more shots at Tse on the ground before driving off.

  • Tse was pronounced dead at Stroger Hospital.

  • Some elementary school children were also outside and in recess when the shots were heard, with many of the parents later saying how frightened they were. One eighth-grader spoke of how the principal told the students to stay hidden and keep quiet while her classmates were crying and texting their parents.

  • “They didn’t really stop. So I heard what I think was probably 10 or 11 shots, and then probably two or three minutes later I heard sirens, and then I heard more sirens — and I came out, and we are outside of a shooting, right outside my apartment,” Taylor Baird, a nearby resident who thought the sounds were initially fireworks, said.


The aftermath: Authorities arrested a possible suspect at Jackson Boulevard on the Kennedy Expressway, according to CBS.

  • Police used a license plate reader on the expressway and stopped the car there. They found a gun inside and described the suspected shooter as in his 20s with a criminal record. The man’s motives are unknown as of this writing.

  • WGN reported that at around the same time as the shooting, police responded to a robbery at Central Port Emporium by 23rd Street and Wentworth Avenue in Chinatown. The robber stole hundreds of dollars, was around 6’1 to 6’3 and wearing a green-hooded coat.

  • A candlelight vigil was later held by the Chinese Christian Union Church of which Tse’s daughters are members, according to decon Chris Javier.

  • “There’s a lot of work to do, but it’s necessary, and tonight’s proof of why it’s necessary,” Javier said about the need for public safety.

  • CBS analyzed police data from the year and found that seven people were shot in Chinatown and four from last year around the same period.




Featured Image via WGN-TV

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