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4 People Stabbed, One Of Them Dead, After Car Accident Starts Fight In Portage Park

CHICAGO (CBS)-- It was an absolutely chaotic scene early Monday morning on the streets of the Portage Park community – as a man stabbed four other people and killed one of them.

Late Monday night, the attacker was still nowhere to be found.

And as CBS 2's Charlie De Mar reported, it all started with a minor car crash.

Friends and family were back Monday night at the corner of Irving Park Road and Long Avenue, where the attack happened. They were remembering Reinaldo Sanchez, 28 – a well-respected artist.

Sanchez lives on through his work – larger-than-life graffiti murals all over the city.

Reinaldo Sanchez
Reinaldo Sanchez, 28, was stabbed to death in an attack in Portage Park on Sunday, Nov. 11, 2019. (Credit: Reinaldo Sanchez)

"We stick together. We're a big family, and graffiti is a really big community that we got going on," said Sanchez's friend, Chris.

Sanchez's friends and other graffiti mural artists toasted him goodbye on Monday night – finding comfort in candles and in each other.

"I'm an artist, up and coming and I'm trying to do a lot myself – so, you know, he was real good to look up to, you know, he did a lot of good work," said friend Emilio Serano. "It just sucks. He was a good, talented artist."

"We don't pick up a gun," added Chris. "We pick up spray cans and we express ourselves through that."

Sanchez was stabbed along with three other friends as they walked to their parked car around 2 a.m. in the 5300 block of West Irving Park Road.

A driver hit their parked car and got out with a large blade.

Sanchez was killed, and the other three men – all in their 20s – were critically injured.

Police say the man then drove off, after leaving Sanchez for dead in the middle of the street.

"People were crying and yelling and screaming and trying to resuscitate somebody lying in the middle of the street," said a witness, Dana.

That horrific scene was caught on video. People are trying to resuscitate a man lying in the middle of Irving Park Road and surrounded by blood.

"It's just not worth it, you know?" Serano said tearfully.

"Everybody loves him," Chris said. "He's going to be loved and missed, and you're going to see his name all over the city."

A fifth man in the group was punched and treated at a nearby hospital. No arrest had been made late Monday.

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