Sunday night should have been a joyful evening for Cesar Patino, as friends and relatives gathered in Logan Square to celebrate his grandson’s 20th birthday.
Instead, 72-year-old Patino was fatally shot while leaving the party.
Patino’s wife, Rosa Gordillo, 76, found him facedown outside between his car and the party, granddaughter Karen Patino told the Tribune. He had dropped his tray of leftovers when he was shot.
“She recognized his shoes,” Karen Patino said. “They turned him over — they thought maybe he had fainted or some other medical thing — and they slowly realized that there was blood.”
Police said Cesar Patino was shot in the chest, possibly by someone traveling in a white SUV, around 9:55 p.m. in the 3900 block of West Fullerton Avenue. His grandchildren took off their sweaters to apply pressure to the gunshot wound until the ambulance came.
Patino was taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
Police said no suspects were in custody and they are investigating the shooting.
The Patino family assembled at Cesar Patino’s home in Albany Park late Sunday night to pray. Most relatives remained there together Monday, Karen Patino said.
Cesar Patino came to Chicago 40 years ago from Ecuador. Now retired, he worked in construction, returning home to Ecuador most winters in protest of Chicago snowfall.
“He came for a better future, and he got it,” Karen Patino said. “He gave his children everything, and he gave his grandchildren everything.”
More like a second father than a grandfather to Karen and her cousins, Patino loved dancing, fishing and travel, Karen Patino said. Patino and Gordillo would wake up early many Sunday mornings throughout Karen’s childhood to take her fishing.
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A “young spirit,” Cesar Patino had planned to fly to the Galápagos Islands and then to Ecuador in December.
“He was such a happy person,” Karen Patino said. “You never heard a no from him. You suggested anything and he said, ‘Let’s do it.’ He was the happiest person ever.”
Detectives now think there was a second car involved in her grandfather’s death, Karen Patino said.
“It seems like there was some kind of issue or something happening between two cars,” she said. “My grandpa just happened to be in the middle of it, in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Cesar Patino was one of 556 homicide victims this year so far in Chicago, according to city data.
Funeral plans are still in the works as family members plan to fly in from Ecuador, Karen Patino said. The family will continue working with Chicago police detectives as they grieve together.
“He was a good man with a good heart and he left nothing but good memories with us,” Karen Patino said. “All he wanted was the family to stay together, and that’s what we’re going to do.”