Two men were arguing over the same woman when one of them fatally stabbed the other at a Navy Pier beer garden Sunday evening, according to two City Council members.
Downtown Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd), whose ward includes Navy Pier, characterized the fatal stabbing as “more like a domestic” dispute that could not have been prevented at a time when there was “adequate security” at Navy Pier.
Chicago police say the 56-year-old man who died had been arguing with a 64-year-old man he knew about 5:30 p.m. at the beer garden at Navy Pier, 600 E. Grand Ave.
Police said the older man, of south suburban Riverdale, pulled out a sharp object and stabbed the victim multiple times.
The victim suffered multiple cuts to his upper body and was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said. His identify has not been released by the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
According to a police report, the suspect, who had to undergo surgery for a small cut to his chest, told police he “stopped” the attack.
He “made multiple statements that the victim attacked him, and he stopped the attack,” according to the report.
Police Monday said charges had not been filed against the suspect.
Reilly said the suspect and victim knew each other.
“It appears one was a boyfriend. The other was an ex-boyfriend of a woman. They got into a very brief altercation, and apparently, the guy took one swipe at the victim, and the victim walked away, sat down and apparently died there,” Reilly said.
“This was not some protracted fight that played out. It happened so quickly that people around it didn’t realize that someone had been injured. ... It seems like it wasn’t due to lack of security or those sorts of protocols.”
A violent incident of any kind at Illinois’ No. 1 tourist attraction is certain to “raise a lot of concerns,” but it shouldn’t because it “wasn’t a random act of violence,” Reilly said.
“These individuals knew each other. It could have happened in any location. It wasn’t specific to the pier, and the response time by security was quick,” he said.
Navy Pier has its own private security force, almost all of whom are moonlighting or retired Chicago Police officers, the alderpersons said.
Witnesses of the attack, including two security guards, did not immediately respond to calls seeking comment. A spokesperson for Navy Pier also did not immediately reply to a request for comment. The pier stayed open after the attack, though the beer garden was closed, and the patio where the attack happened was cordoned off.
The fact that two middle-aged men would choose to settle a dispute in a public place in a way that had fatal consequences says more about the fragile state of some people’s mental health than it does about Navy Pier security, Reilly said.
“You don’t often hear that men in their 50s and 60s are duking it out in public over a lady friend,” Reilly said.
“It’s sad that this is how people are resolving their disputes now with a gun or a knife, rather than with their words. It seems to be a phenomenon that has occurred post-COVID. People just don’t know how to be civil, and they don’t know how to work out their conflicts without violence. It’s playing out too often.
Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd), Public Safety Committee chair, said the incident was captured on video and that charges were pending.
“Preliminary investigation suggests this began as an argument between two males over a female with whom they both had a romantic interest. Unfortunately, the argument turned deadly when the 64-year-old male stabbed the 56-year-old victim in the neck,” Hopkins told the Sun-Times.
In November, a disgruntled former employee fatally shot two co-workers at a restaurant office at Navy Pier.
Contributing: Selena Kuznikov, David Struett
