Despite increased patrols and the addition of officers to city streets in Chicago over the Memorial Day holiday weekend, at least six people were killed — including two taking place Monday night into Tuesday– and 69 wounded in shootings across the city, regarded as one of its most violent.
The Chicago Tribune reported the two homicides on Monday night took place around the same time, about 11 p.m. On the South Side, a 44-year-old man was shot to death, and on the North Side a 39-year-old man was murdered. Police are investigating both shootings.
According to reports, throughout Chicago over the weekend the violence was spread over the course of four days. On Friday afternoon through Saturday morning three people were killed and 12 suffered gunshot wounds; later Saturday through early Sunday, one person was killed and 24 others were wounded; later Sunday through early Monday 13 people were shot; and later Monday into Tuesday, the two men were fatally shot and 16 others wounded.
Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson announced last week that there would be increased patrols througout the city. Last Memorial Day, 12 people were killed and 44 were injured by gunfire.
“We live in the city. Every time you look up, it’s a shooting, it’s an innocent, it’s gangs shooting each other,” Shequita Evans, told the Tribune whose 17-year-old son is entering his senior year in high school. “Who’s to say someone wouldn’t come along and shoot him? I fear for my son.”
The roads didn’t escape the violence, though. A 15-year-old girl who was a passenger in a vehicle on scenic Lake Shore Drive on the city’s North Side was fatally shot early Saturday. And a woman was struck and killed by a car on that roadway early Sunday while trying to escape muggers, police said. Her death wasn’t among the six homicides, but it could later be classified as such if the suspects are caught and charged with murder, they said.
The holiday weekend was of particular concern because it is the unofficial start of the summer, when there are typically more shootings in Chicago, and because there has been a marked increase in homicides this year, with 242 through the end of Monday as compared to 160 during the same period of last year. Shooting incidents are also up this year, with 1,233 compared to 812 during the same period of 2015.
