Six Children Amongst 45 People Shot in Chicago During Bloody Easter Weekend

Nine people are dead and at least 36 were wounded–including six children–in an especially bloody 48 hours in the gang-and-violence-plagued city of Chicago over the weekend.

Five of the six children wounded–who range in age from 11 to 15–were shot during a drive-by shooting on Sunday night after a person in the vehicle reportedly asked if the children were members of a particular street gang.

The sixth, a 15-year-old girl, was shot while riding in a vehicle in what appears to be a separate–but also gang-related–incident.

In one of the especially grisly shootings in the Windy City over the weekend, a Cook County Sheriff’s Office corrections officer fatally shot his wife–a Chicago police officer–before shooting himself in what appears to be a murder-suicide.

The drive-by shooting happened about 7:30 p.m. Sunday in the 6600 block of South Michigan Avenue. According to the Chicago Tribune, the children were walking home after playing in the park at a nearby elementary school when a car pulled up and someone inside asked if they were in a gang.

A relative of one of the children said the children answered no before someone inside the vehicle started shooting. Relatives of another victim says the kids didn’t have time to respond–before they could even answer someone in the car started shooting.

‘I thought it was firecrackers but I saw everyone running,’ witness Kimyana Bryant told NBCChicago.com. ‘My mom ran over to us. I was trying to get all the kids from the park. I brought them over here so they could be in the house with us.’

Investigators found 23 shell casings at the scene.

Each of the children were taken to area hospitals in varying conditions, but each is expected to survive.

In the case of the other 15-year-old girl who also was shot on Sunday, she was in a car driving in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood heading southbound in the 1700 block of North Pulaski Road about 9:40 p.m. when the vehicle stopped at the intersection at West Wabansia Avenue.

As the vehicle stopped at the intersection, three male subjects walked across the intersection and flashed gang signs. As the car drove off, one of the males started firing at the vehicle, hitting the 15-year-old girl in the back.

The girl was taken to Saints Mary and Elizabeth Medical Center in stable condition. It’s unclear whether anyone else in the vehicle was wounded.

As of 5 a.m., no arrests had been made.

Chicago has been plagued by violence in recent years as gangs continue to infiltrate the city.

So far, 85 people have been murdered in 2014. In 2013, the city recorded 431 homicides–which was an improvement from 2012, when Chicago led the nation in homicides with more than 500.