Monday, 17 June 2013
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| Police investigate the scene where a 16-year-old boy was shot and killed by police after he reportedly pointed a gun at officers during a foot chase on June 17, 2013 in Chicago, Illinois. (AFP Photo / Getty Images / Scott Olson) |
At least 46 people were shot in Chicago, Illinois over the weekend in
what is one of the bloodiest series of days yet this year in the Windy
City.
By Monday morning, local news outlets reported that seven people
died over the weekend from a number of incidents across the city.
Six of the shooting deaths occurred at different locations, and a
16-year-old boy became the youngest victim fatally wounded after
a passerby opened fired while riding a bicycle in the Little
Village neighborhood in the city’s South Side, the Chicago
Tribune reported. The paper acknowledged that 13 people were shot from Friday
afternoon into Saturday, and another 33 people were hit from
Saturday afternoon through Father’s Day evening on Sunday.
Chicago police spokesman Adam Collins told the Tribune that, so
far, 2013 is on path to posting the lowest homicide totals in
years. With the bloodshed brought out of this weekend’s
tragedies, however, that trend could change. “There's going to be good days, and there's going to be bad
days, which is why we've been calling this progress, not
victory,” said Collins.
In an email to WBBM-TV, Collins wrote Monday morning that there
is indeed room for improvement as the city tries to shed its
reputation as being a violent, modern-day Wild West.
“While we’ve had fewer murders to date this year than any year
since the mid-1960s, there’s more work to be done and we won’t
rest until everyone in Chicago enjoys the same sense of
safety,” Collins said. In 2012, the homicide count in the Windy City surpassed 500 for
the first time since 2008. A study published last summer equated
living in Chicago with being more dangerous than residing in
Afghanistan, where the number of US serviceman killed overseas
last year paled in comparison to figures in Chi Town.
According to WGN-TV, one of the nearly four-dozen fatalities this
weekend resulted from a bullet fired by a Chicago Police
Department officer. Anton Johnson, 24, was apparently shot and
killed by police Sunday morning after he fled a car brandishing
what appeared to be a gun.
“He fell. [Officers] could see as he was running that he had a
gun in his belt in his back,” Fraternal Order of Police
spokesperson Pat Camden told WGN. “As he fell to the ground,
he was crawling and reaching for the gun at the same time. At
that point the officers opened fire.”
Johnson’s mother, Stacy Liberty, disputed the department’s
account.
“They didn’t even give him time to stop,” Liberty told
WGN. “No call or anything. They just shot my son in the
back.” The Tribune added that in one instance this weekend, a
40-year-old man died after gunfire erupted inside of a nightclub
in the Grand Crossing neighborhood where three others were
wounded. In another Little Village shooting, a 21-year-old man
was the sole causality of a shootout that left at least five
others wounded.
