So much for that temporary downward trend in Chicago weekend shootings. Nothing brings out the best in people like a little holiday spirit.
The current shooting capital of the United States saw nine people killed and another 60 wounded in shootings across the Chicagoland area over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend (a time frame that covered from 7 p.m. Wednesday night before Thanksgiving until 5 p.m. Sunday evening.)
Comparatively, last year’s Thanksgiving holiday weekend saw eight people killed as well, but only 20 people wounded compared to this year’s 60.
Twenty people shot is too many, but it seems tame compared to this year's total.
The warzone that is Chicago did not let the Thanksgiving holiday deter criminals from carrying out heinous crimes throughout the weekend.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times:
Friday evening, a 16-year-old boy was slain in the Back of the Yards neighborhood on the South Side. Diego Alvarado heard gunfire and realized he’d been shot in the back, groin and arm about 6:40 p.m. near his home in the 4800 block of South Throop Street, authorities said. Alvarado died at Stroger [Hospital] at 7:32 p.m.
And that's just one example of the violence that took place over the extended weekend.
The Chicago Tribune reported that two people were killed and 15 more were wounded between Saturday afternoon and early Sunday morning alone.
According to numbers tabulated by the Tribune, a total of 3,916 people have been shot so far in 2016. However, those numbers only include shootings that occurred until November 20.
If you include the numbers from the last week, Chicago has seen 1,000 more shootings in 2016 as compared to 2015, and we still have December to go.
Hopefully people can get into the Christmas spirit and we see a precipitous drop in shootings during the last month of 2016.