Feb. 03--A man killed in a West Garfield Park building this week has been identified as a Cicero man, authorities said.
Edward Flowers, 42, was pronounced dead at 2:45 a.m. Monday at Mount Sinai Hospital after being shot in a building in the 500 block of South Cicero Avenue, a spokeswoman for the Cook County medical examiner's office said Wednesday. Flowers died from a gunshot wound to the back, the office determined following an autopsy.
Flowers had been shot about 12:30 a.m. Monday and was found outside the back of a business, police said. No one was in custody Wednesday.
Witnesses said the shooting happened in a building on the east side of the street, two stories tall with trash-filled vacant lots on either side and a handwritten sign in the window advertising low prices on mattresses.
Police officers stood inside, and a few people gathered across the street to watch them through the windows. The back room is something of a local hangout, neighbors said, where people can shoot pool and play cards late at night.
Despite the occasional shooting, it's a decent spot to pass the time, said one man: "Come in, sit down, socialize, drink, smoke a little weed."
He had been there playing pool right before the shooting, then stepped out to go to a nearby liquor store.
He heard the gunshots as he walked back.
"I'd just left. And thank God I'd just left," he said. People walked past him on the street, pausing only to ask if he knew whether the man had died.
No one was in custody in the
