Violence in Chicago spiked over the weekend as, according to the Chicago Tribune, the city recorded its largest mass shooting since 2014. In total, 8 people were murdered in just this past weekend and another 40 were wounded. In total, 605 people have been murdered in Chicago so far in 2016, a staggering 45% increase versus last year, while 3,475 people have been shot versus only 2,441 a year ago.
A single attack Friday night in East Garfield Park killed one man and left six others wounded, according to police. The people were standing together in the 3300 block of West Maypole Street when someone opened fire from a black vehicle, police said.
An attack of that scale has not occurred in Chicago since 2014, when seven people — including several young teens — were shot in Lawndale.
The Maypole shooting capped off an exceptionally deadly night on the West Side. Less than a half-hour before, two men were fatally shot in a South Austin drive-by, police said. About an hour before that, an 18-year-old man was killed in West Garfield Park
But shootings occurred in nearly every corner of Chicago over the weekend, from a fatal attack in West Rogers Park to a shooting in Morgan Park near the southern border.
A man was shot Sunday afternoon near the 95th Street Red Line CTA station, where he ran after being hit in the shoulder.
Overall, six people were killed and 14 were wounded from Friday afternoon to Saturday morning; from Saturday morning to Sunday morning, one person was killed and 17 were wounded; and from Sunday to just past midnight Monday, one person was killed and at least nine others were wounded.
Many people have attributed the rise in Chicago violence to the co-called “Ferguson Effect” in which criminals lash out against what they view as a “de-legitamized” police force while the police retreat from actually enforcing the law out of fear of inciting the next major riot. In fact, below is the perfect example of a female police officer in Chicago that was recently hospitalized after being “severely beaten” by a violent criminal. In subsequent interviews, the female cop said she was afraid to use lethal force primarily because of the national backlash she may have faced as a result. The encounter happened on Chicago’s violent West Side when cops responded to a car accident. The attacker, apparently under the influence of drugs, launched a brutal attack against responding officers that resulted in three cops being hospitalized. Per ABC:
“She thought she was going to die. She knew that she should shoot this guy, but she chose not to, because she didn’t want her family or the department to have to go through the scrutiny the next day on national news,” Supt. Johnson said.
“It is terrible. It is total disregard for law enforcement. They put their lives forward every day for us and to see somebody do this, to pummel the police officer is terrible. It is a terrible thing,” business owner Louie Rainone said.
As a quick recap on Chicago’s surge in violent crime, below are some stats from HeyJackass!.
First, YTD homicides in Chicago are up a staggering 45% year-over-year at 605 vs. only 417 at this same time last year.
That run-rate of homicides puts the city on pace for around 700 for the full year of 2016 which would be the highest level recorded since the mid-90s.
Meanwhile, 95% of the violent crime in Chicago claimed minority victims and 96% of the identified assailants were also minorities.
Finally, the overwhelming majority of the violent crime continues to come from Chicago’s South and West Side neighborhoods.
via http://ift.tt/2ejf8G5 Tyler Durden