Navy Pier wasn’t the only place to see fireworks in Chicago over the first part of the Independence Day weekend. It remains to be seen what the shooting numbers will be after Monday and Tuesday, especially with most people getting off work for the Fourth of July.
As of late Sunday night, six people had been murdered and a whopping 46 others wounded in shootings over the weekend. This could be considered a drop in weekend shootings as compared to last year’s Independence Day weekend, except for the fact that last year’s holiday weekend included the Fourth of July, since it was on a Monday.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times:
On Saturday, Chicago Police touted a 14 percent decline in shootings this year compared to the first six months of 2016, and they hoped to tamp down the holiday weekend violence with the help of a new gun violence strike force that includes ATF agents.
At least 1,786 people have been shot in the city this year, 310 of them fatally, according to data maintained by the Chicago Sun-Times.
While a 14 percent decline in shootings is definitely the right direction Chicago needs to go in, but when that 14 percent decline is in comparison to a year in which the violence was at a 20-year high, there’s clearly more work to do.
Here’s an example of the violence over this past weekend:
Three people were killed in the weekend’s first fatal shooting, which happened about 8:50 p.m. Friday in the South Side Englewood neighborhood. John Hunter, 52, was found shot and pronounced dead at 12:27 p.m. Saturday at his apartment in the 5700 block of South Wells, authorities said. A police source said Hunter was apparently the third victim of a shooting that occurred about 15 hours earlier and also claimed the lives of two other men.
The two other men were killed as they stood on the porch of the building, authorities said. Those men, ages 30 and 50, were each shot in the chest and legs when two males walked up to them and opened fire. The older man was pronounced dead at the scene, and the younger man died at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Their names have not yet been released.
With the FBI and ATF agents in Chicago to attempt to curb the rampant violence, let’s hope that 14 percent decrease gets larger by year’s end.