Posted on July 6, 2021

92 Shot, 16 Fatally, Across Chicago Since Friday Night

Madeline Kenney and Emmanuel Camarillo, Chicago Sun-Times, July 5, 2021

In the deadliest and most violent weekend this year in Chicago, 92 people have been shot over the long Fourth of July weekend, 16 of them killed.

The 76 wounded include six children and teenagers and two Chicago police supervisors.

Both the number of fatal shootings and the number of shootings overall are highs for 2021, according to a Chicago Sun-Times database of shootings.

In one incident, two people were killed and four were wounded, including a 12-year-old girl and a 13-year-old boy, in a shooting early Monday in Washington Park on the South Side.

That happened around the same time that a 6-year-old girl and a woman were shot in West Pullman and about four hours after an 11-year-old boy and a man were shot in Brainerd on the South Side.

Late Sunday afternoon, a 5-year-old girl was shot in a leg, also in West Pullman.

The Washington Park shooting happened around 1:05 a.m. Monday in the 6100 block of South Wabash Avenue. Someone inside a car that drove by a group of people there started shooting, according to the police.

A 21-year-old man, shot twice in the head, and a 26-year-old man, shot in the torso, were pronounced dead at the University of Chicago Medical Center, police said.

The 12-year-old was struck in the buttocks and taken to Comer Children’s Hospital, according to the police, who said the 13-year-old was shot in a hand and also taken to Comer to be treated.

A woman, 29, was struck in the elbow and taken to the hospital in good condition, and the sixth victim, a 34-year-old woman, suffered two graze wounds, according to the police.

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A Chicago police commander and a sergeant were shot and wounded early Monday while dispersing a crowd on the West Side.

The officers were hit when someone on foot fired at the crowd around 1:30 a.m. in the 100 block of North Long Avenue, police said.

The commander was struck in the foot and the sergeant was grazed in the leg, according to police.Both officers were transported to Stroger Hospital. The shooter has not been located, police said.

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Last weekend, ten people were killed and 68 others wounded in shootings across Chicago.

Amid the notoriously violent weekend, the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition on Sunday hosted a Fourth of July cookout and party at the Concordia Place Apartments on the Far South Side.

At the event, Jackson urged people to put down their guns and called on city officials, including Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Chicago Police Supt. David Brown, to actively work together to tamp down gun violence.

“The finger-pointing must end,” Jackson said.

He later added that, “We need better and we deserve better.”

Jackson’s comments come two days after City Council members spent six hours interrogating Brown over his plans to curb the latest surge in summertime gun violence.

“We urge people… to put down their guns, stop the violence. Of course, when they see violence — [an] attempt to overthrow our government and they’re treated with kid gloves, it decreases the message: If you pick up a gun and shoot somebody, you’re not walking away,” Jackson said. “We deserve a better America.”