suspicious fire that erupted at an apartment building<\/a> in the Austin neighborhood Thursday morning, according to the Cook County medical examiner\u2019s office, elected officials and colleagues.<\/p>\nThree others \u2014 a 5-year-old boy, a 32-year-old woman and a fourth victim, whose body was recovered Friday among the rubble at the building in the 5200 block of West North Avenue \u2014 also died in the blaze that broke out shortly before 2 a.m., officials said. Medical examiner\u2019s spokesperson Natalia Derevyanny confirmed one of the four victims\u2019 identities as George Cummings, 76, to the Tribune Friday night. She could not confirm the identities of the other victims.<\/p>\n
The fire, which left three others critically injured, including a 4-year-old boy, is believed to be suspicious in nature and a potential motive is listed as \u201caltercation \u2014 love triangle,\u201d Chicago police sources said. Arson detectives were at the scene Thursday. A spokesperson said an investigation is ongoing.<\/p>\n
On Friday, police tape was strung outside the front of the Voice Newspapers\u2019 West North Avenue entrance, which is across the street from the building where Thursday\u2019s blaze broke out. Voice owner Isaac Jones was seen in the parking lot of the newspapers\u2019 office Friday afternoon but declined to comment.<\/p>\n
A sign for the paper hung outside the office\u2019s lot. \u201cChicago\u2019s largest West Side newspaper,\u201d it read.<\/p>\n
Diaz was told that Cummings was among those who died in the fire by a couple of people, including a Voice colleague, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was lost (for) words,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was shocking.\u201d<\/p>\n
Diaz met Cummings 21 years ago. Diaz, who used to live in the city but now lives in Romeoville, was looking for part-time work when we came across a position as a graphic artist for the Voice, he said. At the time, the venture was just one newspaper, The Austin Voice. He landed the gig.<\/p>\n
\u201c(They) saw something in me,\u201d Diaz said. \u201cI\u2019ve been working there since.\u201d<\/p>\n
Founded in 1985, The Austin Voice has been Austin\u2019s source of local news for 40 years, according to an online blog for the newspaper. In 2005, a sister publication, The Garfield-Lawndale Voice, also started to circulate. Together, they\u2019re known as the Voice Newspapers.<\/p>\n
Diaz said he\u2019s \u201cjust mad that (Cummings) was taken away.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was doing good for the community,\u201d Diaz said.<\/p>\n
To U.S. Rep. Danny Davis, whose district includes Austin, \u201cThere was no person who lived in the Austin community that was more important to the area than Brad Cummings,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Davis said he met Cummings before he was elected to represent Illinois\u2019 7th Congressional District in 1996. When they met, Cummings was the director of community affairs for Austin\u2019s shuttered St. Anne\u2019s Hospital, Davis said.<\/p>\n
Davis heard that Cummings died in Thursday\u2019s fire from what felt like \u201ceverybody,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI must have had at least 20 phone calls from community leaders (and) community activists,\u201d he said. Cummings was also a board member of the Austin Chamber of Commerce, according to the chamber\u2019s website.<\/p>\n
The Voice Newspapers were last published the week of June 11, and Cummings was credited with taking nearly every front page picture. Captions ended with a simple, \u201c(Photo by Brad).\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c(Cummings) nursed that paper,\u201d Davis said. \u201cI\u2019ve seen him on Sunday mornings out delivering that paper to churches. I\u2019ve seen him during the week delivering that paper and making sure that people got it. \u2026 I\u2019ve seen all of this with my own eyes. I know of what has been his value to the area, to the West Side of Chicago.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kenari Seals, 23, met Cummings when he was in the fifth grade. Born and raised in Austin, Seals said that to him, Cummings was both a companion and a mentor. Cummings was also a \u201cgreat advocate for our community,\u201d Seals said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was definitely a special person. \u2026 It\u2019s hard to just (say) in one sentence what he was and who he was,\u201d Seals said.<\/p>\n
Len Tomasello, a columnist for the Voice Newspapers for the past three-and-a-half years, said Cummings was the \u201cbest of the West Side.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a curmudgeon in a good way,\u201d Tomasello said. \u201cTo him, there was only one thing \u2014 getting the paper out each week. That\u2019s what he lived and breathed for.\u201d<\/p>\n
Longtime West Side Ald. Emma Mitts, 37th, said Cummings\u2019 loss is \u201calready felt.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody knew Brad,\u201d Mitts said.<\/p>\n
Mitts recalled that when she\u2019d go to community events, \u201cI\u2019d look around and the next thing I know, I\u2019d see Brad.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was always covering stories,\u201d Mitts said. \u201cI don\u2019t know how he did it all these years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Citing conversations she\u2019s had with the Fire Department and police as well as teams from the city\u2019s Department of Buildings and Office of Emergency Management and Communications, Mitts said Thursday\u2019s fire appeared to be the result of a \u201cdomestic dispute\u201d and that the blaze was started after two Molotov cocktails were thrown at the building.<\/p>\n
It took firefighters about 45 minutes to extinguish the blaze, which authorities also believe left more than 20 people displaced.<\/p>\n
State Rep. La Shawn Ford, a Chicago Democrat, said what happened Thursday is \u201cunbelievable.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s rocked the West Side of Chicago,\u201d he said. Noting that he\u2019s known Cummings since 1995, Ford said that over the years, he watched Cummings \u201cstruggle to keep the paper going.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a job for him, and I think it was a mission,\u201d Ford said.<\/p>\n
The Tribune wrote about The Austin Voice in 1991 after the newspaper took on a notorious street gang that had a stranglehold on the community for years, according to Tribune archives. The headline read, \u201cLittle newspaper a really big voice.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAll we did was listen,\u201d Cummings said at the time. \u201cWe\u2019re not police officers or investigative reporters. We heard what residents were saying about what they were seeing and what they thought.\u201d<\/p>\n
Davis said he last saw Cummings about a week ago for a meeting of the Voice Newspapers\u2019 advisory committee. They talked about circulation, producing the best information and \u201chow to make sure that the Voice continued to be the strong voice for the West Side communities,\u201d Davis said.<\/p>\n
The Austin neighborhood was Cummings\u2019 family, and personally and professionally, Cummings \u201cmeant a great deal to me,\u201d Davis said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, they say when a tall tree falls, it makes a lot of noise,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd in the West Side of Chicago, Brad Cummings was a tall tree.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chicago Tribune\u2019s Caroline Kubzansky and Deanese Williams-Harris contributed.<\/p>\n
tkenny@chicagotribune.com<\/p>\n
rjohnson@chicagotribune.com<\/p>\n
Originally Published: June 27, 2025 at 1:49 PM CDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alvin Diaz only had two more front pages to finish. As the graphic artist of the West Side\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":21330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5124],"tags":[359,960,19717,5386,1818],"class_list":["post-21329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago","tag-austin","tag-chicago","tag-fatal-fire","tag-il","tag-illinois"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114760038767894494","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}