Chicago Suffers Deadliest May In 21 Years

Leading up to Memorial Day weekend, Chicago police superintendent Eddie Johnson proclaimed that violence wouldn't be tolerated as the city approached the summer months. Then, just two days into the Memorial Day weekend we reported that 40 people had been shot, which meant that if the pace kept up, the number of people shot in Chicago over Memorial Day weekend would easily surpass 2015 totals.

Sadly, the pace of the shootings did hold, and Memorial Day weekend saw 6 people killed and another 63 wounded in a weekend that topped off the deadliest May in Chicago in 21 years according to the Chicago Tribune. Tragically, the month's 66th and final homicide victim was just a 15 year old boy named Fabien Lavinder. The 66 homicides represented the worst May since 1995 when 75 people were killed.

Even more stunning is that for the first five months of the year, 243 people have been killed, which is the most fatalities since 248 were killed in 1999. Overall, year to date shootings have increased more than 50 percent from the same period in 2015.

A seemingly delusional Eddie Johnson told reporters after a speech on Tuesday that "we've seen a steady downtrend in violence since the beginning of the year. It's not success, but it is some progress, and it does give us room for encouragement."

Johnson skirted the fact that Chicago ranks as one of the strictest gun control cities in the nation, and instead directed blame to weak gun laws in neighboring states, an endemic gang culture that ensnares children at younger ages, and a "broken and overwhelmed" judicial system that releases violent offenders too soon. Anything other than the dismal economy of course.

*May results were bad enough, however June is already off to a horrific start, with 3 dead and 9 wounded just on Wednesday alone.

Here is where the shootings occurred over Memorial Day weekend in Chicago