Girl, 16, stabbed to death in Loop, Chicago police say

CHICAGO (WLS) -- A 16-year-old girl was stabbed to death in the Loop Tuesday night, Chicago police said.

The incident took place in the first-block of Van Buren Street at about 11:28 p.m., police said. Detectives had the area underneath the L tracks surrounded by crime tape as they placed several evidence markers in the middle of the street.

CPD said the girl was with a group of people when an argument broke out with another group of people.

At some point, an unknown female suspect pulled out a knife and stabbed the victim two times in the chest then ran off.

The girl was rushed to Northwestern Memorial Hospital in critical condition, where she was pronounced dead a short time later.

She has been identified to the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office as Heaven Taylor from the Chatham neighborhood.

People who live near the scene of the fatal stabbing said they've been increasingly concerned for their safety for the past few months. They said large groups of people hang out in the area and get into fights.

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Ella Pinckney, who lives in an apartment building overlooking that block, ran to the window and witnessed the attack.

"We heard a bunch of noise which has become normal for this block," Pinckney said.

Other neighbors said they saw crowds of people in the street fighting and arguing. It got so loud that people went to their windows to see what was happening.

Chante Tucker was woken up by the noise.

"Just the loud arguing outside and it went on approximately, about 30 minutes," Tucker said. "I actually called my sister and told her, 'Hey I just got woken up out of my sleep. They're arguing outside you know this is ludicrous."

One concerned neighbor said he has seen more crime in the area recently.

"We have things happening in the neighborhood that didn't happen before," neighborhood resident Frank said. "I hope that we don't have this again. The neighborhood is changing though."

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Tucker echoed that thought, saying a lot of Columbia College students who live in the area are scared.

"It's getting worse," Tucker said. "When I spoke to other students, they said it wasn't like this a few months ago. It just started happening around May-ish around May and after tonight, what happened last night, I really did get worried"

Pinckney said the neighborhood feels increasingly unsafe.

"It used to be that if you want to go on a walk at night, just go with a friend," Pinckney said. But now, we don't feel like we can even do that."

The stabbing happened behind Pritzker Park. Fourth Ward Alderman Lamont Robinson said his office has been getting lots of calls from residents and business owners complaining of fights in that corridor. He said the park has started closing earlier in the evening to try to curb crime.

"It is a big issue," Robinson said. "This is on the north end of the 4th ward. I've been working with the mayor's office as well as CPD to make sure we have an officer there, as well as put cameras up."

It's unclear if the victim was targeted. There are several surveillance cameras in the area and police are now trying to access that video to find out who did it.

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