I'm a little late getting to this, but I'll go for it anyway --

Yesterday on my bus ride home from the downtown newsroom at around 5 p.m., we seemed to be going at warp speeds through downtown.

Usually, I'm on the 400 p.m. bus, where seats are plentiful, and the bus stops at every frickin' street in the downtown zone on its way north towards Lincoln Park, Lakeview and Wrigelyville. It's usually about a 40 minute trip (2.4 miles, by the way -- disgusting).

But yesterday, on an hour-later bus, the seats were packed, people were standing in the isles, and the bus whizzed along, passing several small-street stops and seemingly hitting every green light. At that pace, I'd be home in 20 minutes or less. Things were looking up.

After passing the 800 block -- more than halfway home, in about 6 minutes of passed time and nearly out of downtown proper -- we came to a sudden, screeching halt. Ah, I knew it, it WAS too good to be true. Instead of getting hung up in traffic right downtown, it had now migrated just north of the city. Oh well, I figure. I'll just get out and walk -- it's 80 degrees with a nice breeze, and I've only got a mile left to get home. Why not?

Interesting decision... Upon deboarding the bus it quickly became obvious that there was some sort of a problem ahead. Flashing lights, snarling traffic, all merging to the far lane... It wasn't pretty.

Getting closer, I noticed that two left lanes of the three-lane road were cordoned off with police barriers, several police officers milled around, and several cop cars blocked off the streets from the intersection preceeding the scene.

I remained determined to see what all of the fuss was about-- you know, being a reporter and everything, so I plugged along up the same sidewalk that was blocked off immediately ahead. Whoa.

Blood everywhere. Three big puddles on the sidewalk, still fresh, with splattered drips following out of each puddle, like the blood must have been literally spraying out of the wound as the victim ran for cover.

It was weird. I've been at some crime scenes before, but nothing quite like this one. It was clear that someone had either been stabbed or shot -- multiple times. But the strangeness of the situation was that it occurred in broad daylight -- sunny and 80 degrees -- sometime before 515 p.m. in the middle of a somewhat major intersection on the heavily-popluated near north side of Chicago, presumably during rush-hour... This crime was perpetrated with an audience, and the spoils stained the sidewalks...

Not a suspect, witness or victim to be found -- just police officers, presumably gathering evidence and keeping people outside the lines. I was the only bystander, aside from the stream of cars filing by two lanes over, so I took a second to talk with the police about the incident.

Predictably, I didn't get any specifics, but I got a small picture of what "might have happened." The victim was "either stabbed or shot" multiple times, then fled the scene by taxi, ending up at the hospital shortly after. (Nice cabbie, by the way. Kind of unexpected). The "perp" was spotted getting into another car with someone else driving, and headed north (into my hood, I suppose), and was still on the lam.

It was unclear what the motivation of the crime was, but the police seemed sure it was "gang-related." What gangs hang out on the near north side in the Gold Coast? It just didn't make sense...

But, at least it made for an interesting story for my walk home.

You see, this kind of stuff you just don't see too often in Minnesota.

Lights on over Chicago.