4 Dead Among at Least 36 Shot in Chicago in 36 Hours

At least 36 people were shot in Chicago, four of them fatally, in as many hours over the weekend, with more than half of the shootings occurring over a half-day period stretching into early Sunday.

Officers responded to at least 27 incidents, starting at 3:30 p.m. Friday in the West Woodlawn neighborhood on the South Side involving an attack that left a 17-year-old girl dead and two other people wounded, police said. There were also fatal shootings in the South Shore neighborhood Friday night and the Washington Park neighborhood early Sunday, both on the South Side.

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Chicago Police Department spokesman Adam Collins declined to comment on whether the weekend’s temperatures–Saturday reached 80 degrees, the city’s warmest day so far this year–contributed to the number of shootings, though criminologists have said that weather does play a role in violent crime.

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Shontell Brown, mother of the 17-year-old girl killed Friday, called the situation on the city’s streets “an ongoing war,” saying that her daughter Gakirah Barnes was not the first teen from the South Chicago neighborhood to die violently.

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