While it’s a great sign that the number of people shot over the weekend in the city of Chicago was down compared to previous dozen weekends, 27 people being shot in a three-day period is still 27 too many.
At least three people murdered and another 24 wounded in weekend shootings across the Chicagoland area this past weekend. This is down from the previous weekend in which four people were murdered, with 43 more people being wounded as a result of shootings.
Here’s an example of this past weekend’s violence, according to the Chicago Sun-Times:
On Saturday, a man was shot to death while driving in Humboldt Park on the West Side.
Luis Lopez, 45, was driving a Toyota Sedan about 4:19 a.m., south on Homan Avenue in the 3400 block of West Pierce Avenue when someone fired shots from the sidewalk, police and the medical examiner’s office said.
Lopez kept driving and came to a stop about a block away after colliding with three vehicles parked on the street, authorities said. He suffered gunshot wounds to the body and was pronounced dead on the scene.
On a more positive note, late last week the Chicago Police Department (CPD) announced a move that might actually help take criminals off the streets.
The CPD installed “high-tech nerve centers” in their Central and North detective areas to go along with the center that the South area received in February. Each center is equipped to process videos from “private surveillance cameras and cell phone footage” at a much quicker rate than they could before. This move was done in order to attempt to “boost dismal clearance rates for homicides,” the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
The problem of people shooting each other almost hourly during weekends in Chicago is far from being solved. But, for once, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is implementing a program that could help.
This past weekend’s shootings bring the weekend total since Memorial Day weekend to at least 571 people falling victim to shootings, at least 69 of which have died from their wounds.