Police say Brian Fields, 31, was standing in the 5600-block of S. Hoyne and talking to the camera when a car stopped and fired shots, then jumped into a vehicle and sped away. He was pronounced dead at the scene. The viral video originally posed to Facebook, then shared thousands of times on various social media platforms, appears to show that attack. According to his friends, Fields – better known as Sugar Ray – was back in town and live streaming to Facebook in his old West Englewood neighbourhood around 5 p.m. Thursday, broadcasting about the store behind him reopening for kids. “I can’t be out here without the store being open. I need somewhere to duck and hide for cover,” he said. As he was recording, someone started firing his direction. “I heard shots, about nine or 10 shots, then the fellow fell down,” said a witness. The cell phone video kept streaming, facing upwards, and you can see the gunman step into frame still shooting before police say he ran off. “It looks like someone snuck up from behind him,” said his friend Manuel Stewart. “See, he looked that way, look,” said neighbour Lavito Robertson. People who live along that stretch of Hoyne watched the video more intently. “I watched this video at least, like, 20 times,” Robertson said. “I ain’t never seen nothing like that before. I had just keep watching, and watching, and watching it.” Chicago police are working to verify the authenticity of the video, as well as examining it to identify faces to find witnesses and suspects. Investigators were exploring whether the man videoing himself was targeted in retaliation for previous violence. The gunman fled and no suspect is in custody. “We are confident (it) isn’t a hoax,” Anthony Guglielmi, the police spokesman, said in a brief statement emailed Friday afternoon. Fields suffered gunshot wounds to the face and groin, and was taken in critical condition to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he underwent surgery to treat his injuries, according to the authorities. He was one of several people shot Thursday afternoon in Chicago—Two people were killed and one was wounded in a Garfield Park shooting around the same time. The video has now been shared online thousands of times and can be viewed in its entirety here (be warned, the clip contains graphic content and strong language, which some viewers may find upsetting). Edit : The video has been removed by Facebook for violating its guidelines.
