Just as things were apparently beginning to look up for Chicago, Wednesday happened.
While we can all thank God that no one died as a result of the madness that occurred in Chicago during a nine-hour period on Wednesday, there were 14 people wounded in shootings across the Chicagoland area.
Even more distressing was the fact that half of the victims were teenagers. Two 15-year-olds, one 16-year-old, three 17-year-olds and an 18-year-old were among the shootings victims.
Here’s an example of the shootings that happened on Wednesday, according to the Chicago Tribune:
A 15-year-old boy was grazed in the head by a stray bullet on the Southwest Side on Wednesday while riding a CTA bus home from Walton Payton High School, according to Chicago police.
In the Southwest Side shooting, the bullet went under the boy’s skin and popped out, Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson told reporters. The boy was in good condition at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn.
That is nature of a lot of the shootings that happen in Chicago. You don’t even need to be a target in order to become a victim.
All of the violence that happened on Wednesday in Chicago came just a day after CNN published a report praising the “14th consecutive month” that killings and shootings have dropped in the Second City.
According to CNN:
It's a remarkable drop in a city long plagued by gun violence. In April, there were 29% fewer shootings and 21% fewer killings -- decreases authorities attribute to the hiring of more officers, stronger community policing efforts and investments in technology, such as gunshot detection systems and predictive crime software, to help deploy officers[…]
With the technology now active in nearly half of Chicago's police districts, officials in the nation's third-largest city said murders are down 22% and shootings nearly 27% year-to-date, compared to the same period in 2017.
Perhaps the violence on Wednesday was an anomaly amongst otherwise encouraging news for the city.