*Chicago police reported 10 deaths and 60 injuries in shootings since Friday night.
There were at least 70 shootings in the city over the Father’s Day and Juneteenth holidays, ABC News reports. It was one of the most violent holiday weekends in Chicago this year.
Police officials said at least 75 people were shot in 51 separate incidents that began around 6 p.m. on Friday until 11:59 p.m. on Monday.
“Every time I read and hear about another life that is lost because of violence, my heart breaks,” Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said at a news conference on Monday. “Fifteen-year-olds, 14-year-olds, you all know I’m raising children in Chicago. It hurts.”
Brian Ross, a 32-year-old father of four, was among those killed this weekend. He was fatally shot along with another man during a Father’s Day gathering at Smith Park in the Roseland community.
Ross’ relatives told ABC station WLS in Chicago that he was shot by someone in a passing car.
“They literally stopped where they were at, opened fire on them, didn’t care about the kids being around or nothing. And, by the grace of God, no kids get hit,” Ross’ wife, Kandace Ross, said. “They didn’t care about nothing or nobody because there were kids out there. There were women out there, there were grandmas, anybody. They just came and just shot it up just so they can, I don’t know, brag about it.”
We reported in May that a veteran Chicago prosecutor quit his job and blasted the city’s “stupid” leaders in a scathing letter about the city’s crime wave.
Felony trial attorney Jason Poje quit at the end of April due to the city’s lawlessness under democratic leadership. In his exit letter to 85 colleagues, Poje slammed the city for following a “popular political agenda” that has seen crime soar in Chicago, Daily Mail reports. He also criticized bond reform and warned that Chicago is “on a course to disaster”
“The simple fact is that this State and County have set themselves on a course to disaster. And the worst part is that the agency for whom I work has backed literally every policy change that had the predictable, and predicted, outcome of more crime and more people getting hurt,” Poje wrote, referring to the office of Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx.
Poje also made clear that he is leaving the city for his family’s safety.
“Many years ago my family found a nice quiet corner of the suburbs. Now my son, who is only 5, hears gunfire while playing at our neighborhood park, and a drug dealer is open-air selling behind my house (the second one in two years),” Poje wrote.
“I will not raise my son here. I am fortunate enough to have the means to escape, so my entire family is leaving the State of Illinois. I grew up here, my family and friends are here, and yet my own employer has turned it into a place from which I am no longer proud to be, and in which my son is not safe,” he added.
READ MORE: Chicago Prosecutor Quits Job Amid Crime Wave, Blasts City Leaders in Scathing Letter
