Five people were wounded in a shooting Wednesday evening near “O Block,” a notoriously violent Chicago street that includes the sprawling Parkway Gardens low-income apartment complex.

The shooting occurred about 6:17 p.m. in the 6300 block of South Dr. Martin Luther King Drive, which is a block north of “O Block,” according to preliminary information from law enforcement sources. An officer-in-distress call was broadcast over police radio after a large crowd gathered at the scene.

Three of the gunshot victims showed up at the University of Chicago Medical Center, sources said. Fire officials said a man in his 20s had a gunshot wound to the chest and was taken to the same hospital in critical condition.

It’s unclear where the other victim was being treated. The conditions of that person and the three other victims who took themselves to the hospital weren’t immediately known.

Once the home of former First Lady Michelle Obama, “O Block” in the 6400 block of South Dr. Martin Luther King Drive has become a staple of Chicago drill music and has also counted rappers Chief Keef and King Von as residents. King Von, whose real name was Dayvon Bennett, named his debut album “Welcome to O’Block” and he was memorialized in a mural near Parkway Gardens after he was fatally shot in Atlanta in 2020.

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Gang members named the block for 20-year-old Odee Perry, who was gunned down just around the corner on a summer night in 2011. Police sources previously said he was killed by a 17-year-old female gang assassin named Gakirah Barnes, who was later killed amid a series of retaliatory shootings in 2014.

Police records show the investigation into Barnes’ death was closed after Cook County prosecutors rejected charges against the prime suspect, Bennett.