*Damn! This year has been absolutely brutal as far as the number of homicides happening in Chicago. It’s at the point where we dread even talking about it … especially on Monday mornings when the talk is all about another bloody weekend that preceded it.
But, it’s our duty so let’s get to it. The bottom line is that eleven people were killed and many more were injured by gun violence in several Chicago neighborhoods over a long and bloody holiday weekend, capping a year of record-breaking murder rates in the Windy City.
The bloodshed didn’t stop on Sunday, either. It spilled over to Monday where two shootings in broad daylight brought the weekend total to 53 people shot since Friday afternoon. The Chicago Tribune reports that at least a dozen of those injured are in serious or critical condition, which means the death toll will likely rise.
On Christmas at around 9:20 p.m., two brothers, ages 18 and 21, were gunned down by an unknown assailant while playing dice on their family’s front porch in the South Side, the Tribune reports. Five other friends and relatives were injured in the surprise attack, at least two were in critical condition and may have since died of their injuries.
“It seemed like it was going to be a pretty decent weekend. Christmas, no shooting, then boom,” their neighbor Anthony Marshall told the Tribune. By Monday evening, Chicago had seen at least two double homicides among eight multiple-victim shootings, according to the Tribune, which has kept a tally of gun violence throughout the long weekend.
Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesman for the Chicago Police Department told the Tribunethat many of the shootings occurred in neighborhoods “with historical gang conflicts.” He said most of the attacks were carried out against potential rivals while at holiday gatherings, prompting retaliatory violence.
Some 45 guns were seized by police in areas where gang violence is prevalent, Guglielmi said, reiterating the police department’s call for “the gun sentencing tools against repeat offenders so that we can adequately hold people accountable” for the city’s “unacceptable level of gun violence.”
By the beginning of December, Chicago’s homicide toll had already topped 700, a level of violence not seen in the city since the drug wars of the late 1990s. Last year’s murder rate closed at 488, according to police figures cited by the Tribune.
Police said 77 people were killed in November alone. Let’s pray that 2017 will see a change in the situation. Pray for peace!
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