The Other McCain

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Suspect Charged for Hit-and-Run That Killed Three Outside Chicago Gay Bar

Posted on | August 25, 2022 | Comments Off on Suspect Charged for Hit-and-Run That Killed Three Outside Chicago Gay Bar

Tavis Dunbar, 34

We previously reported on this Aug. 14 incident in which three men — Donald Huey, 25, Devonta Vivetter, 27, and Jaylen Ausley, 23 — were fighting in the street outside the Jeffery Bar (“one of the oldest and longest continuously running Black gay bars in the nation”) at 5 a.m. when they were killed by a driver who disappeared after ditching his car three blocks away from the fatal scene. He is now behind bars:

Hours after Tavis Dunbar plowed a borrowed car into four men outside a Chicago gay bar, he asked a friend to help him with an alibi, prosecutors say.
But she refused to help, telling him he had killed two people.
“Actually,” Dunbar allegedly replied, “it’s three.”
Dunbar turned himself in to the police on Monday. He is now charged with three counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted first-degree murder for the horrifying crime, which unfolded outside Jeffery Pub, 7041 South Jeffery, early on August 14.
Prosecutor Danny Hanichak said Dunbar and the four victims were inside Jeffery Pub around 5 a.m., which was closing time. Moving outside, the four victims got into an argument, which spilled into the street, and a witness heard a man with braids say, “I got something for you, you motherf*ckers.”
That man then walked north on Jeffery toward the car Dunbar had borrowed, Hanichak said.
Video shows the headlights of his car turn on about a half-block north of the bar and then pull into the street. The car accelerated quickly, reaching 59 mph a half-second before the crash, Hanichak continued.
Three victims died at the scene: Devonta K. Vivetter, 27, Donald Huey, 25, and Jaylen Ausley, 23. The fourth man suffered leg injuries but survived.
Dunbar parked the car about three blocks away and started calling out for a friend who lived nearby.
With glass in his braids and blood on his hands, Dunbar went into the friend’s home and talked about an incident outside Jeffery Pub but did not tell the whole story, according to Hanichak. Dunbar asked the friend to drive him to a female friend’s home, and the man agreed.
There, Dunbar told the woman that he had been kicked out of the bar and totaled his cousin’s car after people started “coming at him,” but there is no evidence that anyone threatened Dunbar, Hanichak said.
The woman saw a video of the crash online later that day and immediately realized that Dunbar was responsible for the murders, according to Hanichak.
When Dunbar asked her to be an alibi witness, she refused because he had killed two people. Dunbar corrected her, Hanichak said. It was three people.
Analysis of the car Dunbar allegedly drove showed that its accelerator was depressed at 99%, and the brakes were never touched before impact.
When Dunbar turned himself in on Monday, he had cut his hair and “significantly” changed his appearance, Hanichak alleged.
Judge Susana Ortiz ordered Dunbar held without bail.

Did I mention Dunbar has twice served time for violent crimes?

According to Hanichak, Dunbar received a five-year prison sentence for beating a victim in the head with a baseball bat during a dispute over money in 2007. Five years later, Dunbar hit his 11-year-old brother in the head and body with a curtain rod and grabbed the boy by his neck, Hanichak said. Dunbar received two years for that crime.

Even in Chicago, I don’t think he’ll get off so lightly now.




 

Category: Chicago, Crime, Gays

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