A 55-year-old man who was shot on West Van Buren Street in June has died from his injuries nearly two months later, and Chicago police say no one has been arrested. David Allen, of the 6000 block of South Stony Island Avenue, died early Sunday at University of Illinois Hospital, where he had been taken after the shooting.
Allen was shot on June 16 in the 3400 block of West Van Buren Street on Chicago’s West Side, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. He died at 1:33 a.m. Sunday from complications of the gunshot wound, per the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office, which conducted an autopsy Monday and ruled his death a homicide. Chicago Police Department Area 4 Detectives are investigating both the shooting and the death; as of now, no arrests have been made.
Because Allen’s death came weeks after the initial shooting, the case now falls under Illinois’s rules for prosecuting delayed-death homicides. First-degree murder carries no statute of limitations in Illinois under 720 ILCS 5/3-5, according to Whiteside & Goldberg, meaning prosecutors can pursue charges once a suspect is identified, regardless of how much time passed between the shooting and the medical examiner’s homicide ruling.
A Familiar Stretch of West Van Buren Street
Allen’s shooting happened just blocks from another violent incident that struck the same corridor only weeks earlier. In May, a 55-year-old man was shot in the leg during an armed robbery in an alley behind the adjacent 3500 block of West Van Buren Street, and a 35-year-old suspect was later arrested in West Town and charged with armed robbery and weapons violations, Hoodline reported in its earlier coverage, Chicago Man Charged After West Side Robbery Shooting. Whether Allen was targeted or caught up in broader street violence on that block remains an open question…