As Life in Chicago Largely Comes to a Halt, Shootings Continue on South, West Sides

Shortly after Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced his order for Illinois residents to stay at home in his boldest attempt to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, gunshots rang out in the West Pullman neighborhood.

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While life for many Chicagoans has come to a grinding halt as many businesses and all schools have been forced to close in the wake of the rising COVID-19 crisis, shootings continued to plague communities on the South and West sides.

As of 6:50 p.m. Sunday, 10 people had been gunned down in weekend shootings across the city, one of them fatally. Last year, four people were killed and 10 others were wounded in shootings over the course of the same weekend.

“Our response is identical to what it was a year ago,” police spokesman Anthony Gugielmi told the Sun-Times. {snip}

As of 4 a.m. Sunday, the city had tallied 442 shootings and 90 homicides so far this year.

The sole weekend homicide happened about 12:50 a.m. Sunday, when a 30-year-old man was shot multiple times in the 3100 block of South Benson in Bridgeport, police reported.

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Though Guglielmi said he expects to see an uptick in gun arrests and seizures during street stops related to the governor’s order, he noted that officers are “not looking to arrest the entire city of Chicago.”

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