Week after week after week I report on the violence in my hometown, and just when you see the numbers beginning to trend into a more positive direction, you get a weekend like the one that just ended. It doesn’t get any easier for someone who, despite all its faults, still loves where he came from.
Sadly, at least 40 people were shot this past weekend in shootings across the Chicagoland area, five of which died from their wounds.
Here’s an example of this past weekend’s violence, according to the Chicago Sun-Times:
Saturday, three teens were shot, one of them fatally, in Homan Square.
Frank Looney, 16, was shot in the head and chest about 10 p.m. at a party in an apartment building in the 3400 block of West Flournoy Street, authorities said.
Looney, who lived on the Near West Side, was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital where he was pronounced dead, authorities said. An autopsy Sunday ruled his death a homicide by multiple gunshot wounds.
Another 16-year-old boy and a 17-year-old girl each suffered gunshot wounds to their legs, authorities said. Both were taken to Stroger Hospital.
Chicago saw their weekend shooting total increase last weekend, where at least seven people were killed and another 21 were wounded, this past weekend’s numbers, as compared to the previous two weekends — 19 and 16 people were shot during those weekends, respectively.
As for the unfortunate running total MRCTV has been keeping track of since Memorial Day weekend, including the new numbers, Chicago has had at least 833 people shot during weekends, with at least 120 people dying from their wounds. That's a 14 percent kill rate.
In their year-to-date count, the Chicago Tribune reported that 2,199 people have been shot in the city of Chicago in 2019 through October 13th.
It’s not about proving that cities which have strict gun laws don’t work anymore. That’s already been proven time after time. No, now it should be more about stopping it than proving a point. It always was and should’ve been. It makes one begin to wonder whether the politicians in charge of Chicago even care anymore.