West Garfield Park Mass Shooting Kills 3 Near Barber Shop

Three people were killed and a fourth wounded Friday afternoon when gunmen opened fire on a group standing outside a West Garfield Park barber shop, police said.

The attack unfolded around 4:50 p.m. on April 17 in the 4000 block of West Maypole Avenue, near the corner of Pulaski Road. A car pulled up to the sidewalk where three men and a woman had gathered. Two occupants stepped out and began shooting, according to Chicago police. No arrests have been made.

Rickia Williams, 32, took a single gunshot to the back. She was rushed to Stroger Hospital, where she died. Lavell Lee, 36, was struck multiple times and pronounced dead at the scene. Kenneth M. Bell Jr., 27, also hit multiple times, was transported to Mount Sinai Hospital and later succumbed to his wounds. A fourth victim, a man whose name wasn’t released, survived but remained in critical condition.

Three dead on a Friday afternoon outside a barber shop. The building was closed by Sunday, the storefront quiet where investigators had crowded hours before.

Cook County Crime Stoppers is offering up to $10,000 for information leading to an arrest. Tips can be submitted anonymously by calling 1-800-535-7867 or through the Chicago Police Department’s online tip portal.

“This senseless act of violence has devastated families and shaken the entire community,” said Paul Rutherford, the organization’s director. He called on anyone with information, no matter how minor it seemed, to come forward. “Your information could be the key to bringing justice to the victims and their loved ones,” Rutherford said.

A West Garfield Park resident named Greg, who didn’t give his last name out of concern for his safety, said he was about a block away when the shots rang out on Friday.

“There were lots of cops,” he said.

Greg grew up with Kenneth Bell Sr., the father of Bell Jr. He didn’t know the younger Bell well but felt the weight of what happened. “Nobody knows what happened, but these [shooting victims] stay outside. I try to stay away from all of that.”

He didn’t sugarcoat what West Garfield Park’s been living through. “When three people die, it’s a tragedy for the whole community,” Greg said. “It’s very sad, and the shootings are getting worse.”

Those words land differently when you know the numbers. Chicago recorded 108 murders through April 12 of 2026, a roughly 6 percent climb from the 102 homicides logged during the same stretch in 2025, according to police data. The West Side has carried a disproportionate share of that toll.

Block Club Chicago reported on the community reaction in the days following the shooting, capturing the mix of grief and exhaustion that tends to settle over a neighborhood after an attack like this one.

West Garfield Park has absorbed that exhaustion for a long time. Concentrated poverty, decades of disinvestment, limited access to jobs and services — it’s the kind of structural weight that researchers at the University of Chicago Crime Lab have consistently tied to elevated violence rates across Chicago’s West Side.

None of that context brings back Williams, Lee, or Bell Jr.

Greg knows the ground-level reality better than any data point can describe. He grew up here. He knew the family. He watched the cops work the block on Friday, and he’ll keep watching what happens on Sunday, and Monday, and every week after that, the same way residents in this part of the city have watched for years, waiting to see whether anyone with power actually does something.

The tip line is 1-800-535-7867. Cook County Crime Stoppers says it’s anonymous.