Dozens of people have been shot in places across the city of Chicago since Friday, including five multiple-injury shootings.
As of late Sunday afternoon, police said 59 people had been shot — five of them fatally — and more than a dozen were reported to be teenagers. During a spree between midnight and 3 a.m. Sunday morning, 28 people were injured and two more killed, including a 17-year-old girl who was pronounced dead after being shot in the face.
Law enforcement blamed the widespread violence on gang violence and illegal guns.
“If they [the shooters] shoot you they don’t even run,” one man told the Chicago Tribune. “They just walk away, they ain’t trying to run.”
Despite the spike in shootings, Police Patrol Chief Fred Waller noted that the total number of people killed in Chicago have so far been 25 percent lower this year. “By no means do these statistics mean we have a victory,” Waller said, according to USA Today. “But I promise you we won’t be defeated … by a small element committing these reckless acts.”
In the first six months of 2018, Chicago police said the city had 252 homicides and 1,000 shootings, with crimes being committed predominantly in low-income, predominantly black neighborhoods, the Associated Press reports. According to a Chicago Tribune count, 304 people were killed this year in Chicago up until July 31, 118 fewer than this time last year.
This weekend’s violence follows a demonstration that briefly shut down Lake Shore Drive as some protesters condemned violence and police brutality. Some also called for the resignation of Mayor Rahm Emaunuel, a Democrat.
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