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Palatine police: Two teenagers wounded in apparent gang-related shooting

Police say gang member fired on pair during a drug deal

Two teenagers were wounded Sunday night in what Palatine police say appears to be a gang-related shooting that occurred as they took part in a drug deal near an apartment building entrance.

Police said a 15-year-old boy is in critical but stable condition after surgery at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge for gunshot wounds to his upper torso and foot. A 19-year-old man is in stable condition undergoing treatment at Lutheran General for bullet wounds to a hand and a foot.

Both were standing near the entrance to a building at Baldwin Green Apartments on the 1900 block of North Green Lane about 11:45 p.m. Sunday when a person walked up to them and began shooting, police said.

The shooter ran to a waiting vehicle in a nearby parking lot, police said.

Yellow crime-scene tape sealed off a section of the parking lot Monday near where the shooting occurred. Police had a white tent at the apartment building entrance.

Baldwin Green, located on the northeast side of the village, has been plagued by violence dating back to the 1990s, before the property was annexed into the village.

In 2014, a father and son were killed at the apartment complex, and in 2015, a 17-year-old boy and 35-year-old man were shot there in what police said was gang-related violence. A 43-year-old man was shot and wounded in the same complex in 2017.

Palatine police have been trying to build trust with Baldwin Green residents in part through a weekend evening summer foot patrol program that was revived in 2017. Officers last year could be seen greeting residents sitting outside their apartments.

The complex also is home to the Edgebrook Community Center, a satellite location of the nonprofit Palatine Opportunity Center, which holds after-school tutoring for students, financial counseling and other programs for kids and adults.

Anyone with information about Sunday's shooting should call the Palatine Police Department at (847) 359-9000 or Palatine/Inverness Crime Stoppers at (847) 590-7867.

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