Irish actor killed in random shooting

A 27-year-old aspiring Irish actor was shot in the head in a seemingly random attack in Chicago, police said.

Barry Cunnane, from Dublin, was walking with a friend about 1:30 a.m. Saturday when they passed two men, police said.

According to the friend, who asked that his name be withheld, one of the men turned around, said something like ”What’s up?” and shot Cunnane in the back of the head.

“They weren’t waiting for a response,” the friend said. ”They weren’t trying to engage us in conversation. ... And as soon as it happened, they disappeared.

“It wasn’t a robbery. It was, ‘I’m going to kill somebody for no reason.”’

Cunnane, who worked in sales for the American Medical Association, was pronounced dead.

He had moved to Chicago as a result of its vibrant theatre scene.

Investigators have not identified a motive for the shooting, Chicago Police Department spokesman Carlos Herrera said.

It happened in the Ravenswood neighbourhood on Chicago’s Northwest Side, an area not known for violent crime.

Police do not believe Cunnane said anything to the two men, Herrera said.

Members of Cunnane’s family flew to Chicago from their home outside Dublin. They plan to take his body home to Ireland for a funeral after a memorial service in Chicago.

“We intend to walk around all the neighbourhoods and places he had been,” said Cunnane’s mother, Monica Cunnane, 64. “And we want to see where it happened.”

“It’s in the nature of a pilgrimage,” said father Frank Cunnane, 66.