Thread: 104 shot, 14 fatally, over Father’s Day weekend in Chicago

104 shot, 14 fatally, over Father’s Day weekend in Chicago


Five children were among the 14 people killed, including a 3-year-old boy and 13-year-old girl killed in separate shootings in Austin on Saturday.
By Sun-Times Wire Updated Jun 22, 2020, 10:02am CDT


Chicago police SUVs wait outside West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park June 20, 2020, where a 3-year-old boy was taken after being shot while riding in a car with his father in Austin. The boy later died. Sam Kelly/Sun-Times


Chicago saw its highest number of gun violence victims in a single weekend this year with 104 people shot across the city from Friday evening to Monday morning, 14 of them fatally. Five of those killed were minors.
The weekend saw more shooting victims but less fatalities than the last weekend of May, when 85 people were shot, 24 of them fatally — Chicago’s most deadly weekend in years.
In a Sunday news conference, Chicago Police Supt. David Brown reflected on the surge in gun violence. “Bullets don’t just tear apart the things they strike,” Brown said. “Bullets also tear apart families. Bullets destroy neighborhoods and they ruin any sense of safety in a community.”
Five children killed

The latest child fatality happened early Monday in Austin on the West Side.
Two boys, 15 and 16, were walking in an alley at 12:18 a.m. in the 4700 block of West Superior Street when someone fired at them, possibly from a gray sedan, according to Chicago police. The 15-year-old was shot in his leg, chest and abdomen. He was taken to Stroger Hospital and pronounced dead. The other boy, 16, was hit in the ankle and also taken to Stroger. He was in fair condition.
Saturday night, a 13-year-old girl was killed and two other teens were wounded in Austin on the West Side.
The girl was inside a home about 8:30 p.m. in the 1000 block of North LeClaire Avenue when the shots were fired, and she was struck in the neck, police said. Amaria J. Jones was taken to Stroger, where she was pronounced dead, authorities said.
Two boys, 15 and 16, were sitting on a porch when one of them noticed a red laser pointing at him and heard gunfire, police said. The younger boy was struck in the back and the older boy was struck in the leg. They were taken to Mt. Sinai Hospital in good condition.
Two hours earlier, a 3-year-old boy was fatally wounded when someone opened fire at his father while they were driving in Austin.
The toddler, identified as Mekay James, was struck in the back about 6:25 p.m. when someone in a blue Honda pulled behind the black SUV the boy’s 27-year-old father was driving in the 600 block of North Central Avenue and fired several rounds, authorities said.
A police source said the father was believed to be the intended target of the shooting.
The father drove the boy to West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park, police said, but the boy was pronounced dead shortly after arriving. The father was also treated for a graze wound to the abdomen.
Two teenage boys were killed just over an hour before that in South Chicago.
Jasean Francis, 17, and the 16-year-old were in an alley about 5:10 p.m. in the 7900 block of South Luella Avenue when a male suspect approached them and fired shots, authorities said. Francis was shot in the back, chest and hand while the 16-year-old was shot in the back and side. Both were taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where they were pronounced dead.
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Monday morning

The weekend’s latest fatal shooting left a man dead Monday morning in Lawndale.
The 41-year-old was on the street at 4:26 a.m. in the 3800 block of West Harrison Street when someone shot him in the face, according to police. He died about an hour later at Stroger. A person of interest was taken into custody after people near the scene identified him as the possible shooter.
Minutes earlier, another man was killed in East Garfield Park.
The 30-year-old was walking at 4:18 a.m. in the 100 block of South Washtenaw Avenue when someone in the alley fired shots, according to police. He was hit in the neck and taken to Stroger, where he died.
Sunday

Early Sunday, a man was killed and three others were wounded in a shooting in Humboldt Park.
The men were arguing with a group about 12:04 a.m. in the 2600 block of West Potomac Avenue when they were shot, authorities said. Alexis Perez, 41, was shot multiple times and was pronounced dead on the scene. Two other men, 23 and 21, both went to Stroger in good condition. The older man was shot in the knee and hip while the younger man was shot in both legs. A fourth man, 34, was shot in his legs and arms. He was treated and released from Mt. Sinai Hospital.
Sunday evening, a shooting left one man dead and another wounded Sunday evening in Humboldt Park.
They were shot about 7:30 p.m. in the 800 block of North Springfield Avenue, authorities said. Toby Boens, 22, was struck in the chest and pronounced dead at Stroger.
A 34-year-old man was hit in the arm and abdomen and was taken to the same hospital in critical condition, police said.
Ten minutes earlier, a man was shot to death in West Rogers Park on the North Side.
Gary Tinder, 20, was walking about 7:20 p.m. in the 6200 block of North Troy Street when someone approached and shot him in the abdomen, authorities said. He was taken to St. Francis Hospital in Evanston, where he was pronounced dead.
Saturday

Two men were shot, one of them fatally, in another attack Saturday evening in Austin.
Officers responding to reports of a person shot at 7:46 p.m. in the 200 block of North Central Avenue found the two men on the sidewalk, authorities said. Alonzo X. Robinson, 27, was shot in the torso and taken to West Suburban Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. The other man, 32, was hit in the left foot and taken to the same hospital in good condition.
Less than an hour before that, a man was fatally shot and another was injured in Logan Square on the Northwest Side.
The men, 23 and 24, were outside about 7 p.m. in the 1900 block of North Western Avenue when a group of males approached them yelling gang slogans, according to police. The group asked what gang the men were with, and a fight ensued. During the altercation, one of the males pulled out a gun and fired shots.
The 23-year-old man was struck in the neck and pronounced dead on the scene, police said. The 24-year-old was hit in the arm and was taken to Saints Mary and Elizabeth Medical Center in good condition.
Friday

A 33-year-old man was killed Friday night in Garfield Park on the West Side.
Almos Collum was driving about 10:25 p.m. in the 4100 block of West Congress Parkway when a black SUV approached and someone inside fired into his vehicle, authorities said. He was shot multiple times and taken to Stroger, where he died at 10:49 p.m. He lived in Austin.
The weekend’s earliest homicide happened less than an hour earlier blocks away in Austin.
Three men were outside about 9:52 p.m. in the 4800 block of West Gladys Avenue when someone in a passing vehicle unleashed gunfire, police said.
Johnny Teajue, 33, was shot in the neck and taken to Stroger, where he was pronounced dead, according to police and the medical examiner’s office. He lived in Washington Park.
A 34-year-old man was shot in the foot and is in good condition at West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park, police said. A 43-year-old man who was shot in the lower back took himself to Mt. Sinai Hospital, where he was listed in fair condition.
Nonfatal attacks

The injured included a 16-year-old girl shot early Monday in an East Garfield Park shooting that left four other people wounded.
The group was at a large gathering on the street at 2:45 a.m. on South Central Park Boulevard when someone fired shots from a passing vehicle, according to police. The girl was hit in the abdomen and taken to Stroger in critical condition. A 24-year-old woman shot in the leg and a 32-year-old man shot in the arm were taken to the same hospital in good condition.
Two other men, 30 and 31, were each shot in the leg and went to Mt. Sinai Hospital on their own in good condition, police said.
On Sunday night, a 12-year-old girl was grazed in a shooting that also wounded a man in Burnside.
She was outside with a group of people about 9:50 p.m. on East 90th Place when someone in a black vehicle fired shots, police said. The girl was grazed on the leg and taken to Trinity Hospital. A 21-year-old man was shot in the hip and taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center. Both were in good condition.
A teenage boy was shot early Sunday in Humboldt Park on the West Side.
The 17-year-old was in a vehicle with three other people at 12:36 a.m. on West Hirsch Street when someone walked up and started shooting, according to police. The vehicle took off and hit several parked cars. The four occupants got out, at which point the suspect shot the teen in the abdomen. He was taken to Stroger in fair condition.
Another teen boy was grazed by a bullet early Saturday in Little Italy.
The 17-year-old was driving about 12:45 a.m. on South Loomis Street when someone in a gold sedan fired shots, police said. He was grazed in the ribcage and taken to Mt. Sinai Hospital in good condition.
A few minutes later, a 64-year-old woman was shot inside her home in Humboldt Park on the West Side.
She was inside at 12:49 a.m. in the 1000 block of North Lawndale Avenue when bullets came through her window, according to police. The woman was hit in the arm and taken to Norwegian American Hospital in fair condition. She did not appear to be the shooter’s intended target.
The weekend’s first shooting wounded a 35-year-old woman Friday evening in South Shore.
She was with a group of people about 6:30 p.m. in the 7400 block of South Phillips Avenue when a light-colored SUV pulled up and someone inside opened fire, police said. She was shot in the arm, and her condition was stabilized at the University of Chicago Medical Center.
At least 67 other people were hurt in shootings throughout Chicago between 5 p.m. Friday and 5 a.m. Monday.
Last weekend’s gun violence killed two people and wounded 31 others across the city.

https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2...19-22-104-shot

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After 110 Shot In Chicago, The Top Cop Blames Gangs, Guns, Drugs And ‘Not Enough Time Spent In Jail’

By Chip Mitchell, Patrick SmithMonday, June 22, 1:25 PM PDT Updated 4:16 PM PDT

Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown speaks at a press conference on May 22, 2020. Manuel Martinez / WBEZ

After his first weekend with a triple-digit shooting tally since taking over as Chicago’s top cop, Supt. David Brown resorted to traditional Police Department talking points and tried to shift blame for the violence to other parts of the criminal-justice system.

But Brown, at a news conference Monday afternoon, also made it clear he does not want to turn back the clock on police cooperation with street outreach workers — many of them formerly imprisoned gang members — that Mayor Lori Lightfoot is counting on to make a dent in the city’s chronic gun violence.

“I’m encouraged that other parts will step up and help,” Brown said. “I just know this — police can’t do it alone — that we need partners to be effective at protecting this city.”

A WBEZ count of CPD reports shows 110 shooting victims, at least 13 of whom have died, in Chicago gun violence from Friday afternoon to Monday morning. The shooting was spread out over the weekend — unlike a burst of violence during May 31 looting that killed 15 people in one day, setting a modern record for the city.

Asked what caused the most recent shooting flareup, Brown seemed to echo superintendents from the past: “Gangs, guns and drugs and not enough time spent in jail for violent felonies.”

Philip Cline, who served as superintendent from 2003 to 2007, frequently said Chicago’s high murder numbers could be explained by “gangs, guns and drugs.”

Garry McCarthy, the superintendent from 2011 to 2015, and his successor Eddie Johnson both repeatedly went before TV cameras and blamed shooting increases on short prison sentences for gun crimes.

Brown, however, focused on the jail.

“Our cops are working hard,” Brown said. “There are too many violent offenders not in jail or on electronic monitoring, which no one is really monitoring.”

“Our endgame strategy is to arrest violent felons but, if violent felons are getting right out of jail, we need cooperation and collaboration with other partners within the justice system,” the superintendent said.

Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart’s office, which runs the jail and the electronic monitoring program, sent a statement that says the program has grown by roughly 1,000 individuals since the pandemic’s start.

“This increase took place without any additional staff or funding allocated to EM, as emergency staffing efforts were focused in the Cook County Department of Corrections,” the statement says.

Pat Milhizer, a spokesman for Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans’ office, questioned Brown’s effort to link electronic monitoring to “allegations of criminal activity” over the weekend.

“If this is a discussion about resources for pretrial programs, Chief Judge Evans welcomes ideas to strengthen services for those who qualify for release while their cases are pending and they are presumed innocent,” Milhizer said in a statement.

During his news conference,Brown also rejected a notion popular with University of Chicago criminologists who work closely with the police department. He said the violence cannot be blamed on easy access to guns.

“I’m from Texas,” Brown said, noting that state’s high number of firearms. “Houston, San Antonio and Dallas have lower murder rates.”

He said that shows it would be possible for Chicago to tamp down its infamous gun violence.

The key, Brown said, is building a public safety infrastructure that combines policing, street outreach work and investments in poor neighborhoods. He said that collaboration is just getting off the ground and is “obviously not mature.”

Brown also repeatedly praised rank-and-file officers for their work ethic after rubbing many the wrong way when he and Lightfoot accused a group of cops of loafing during Chicago looting that followed George Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis police.

Brown also called it “completely unacceptable” that the weekend’s homicide victims included a 3-year-old, Mekhi James.

The boy, shot in the city’s Austin neighborhood, was among five minors killed during the weekend, a number that departs from a decades-old trend in which children account for a smaller and smaller percentage of Chicago’s gun violence victims, according to a WBEZ analysis of Cook County Medical Examiner’s data.

Before this weekend, Chicago’s 297 homicide victims this year included 22 children (7.4%) under age 18. That percentage has been falling since 1993, when 18.4% of the city’s homicide victims were minors.

Speaking at a separate news conference Monday afternoon, Lightfoot voiced support for Brown and excoriated a reporter for asking whether she might replace him due to the violence.

“Superintendent Brown has been here for eight weeks,” Lightfoot said. “He really understands the department well and I think he’s going to end up being one of the best superintendents in the history of the department.”

Lightfoot also defended a Brown goal, upon his arrival, to keep the city’s homicides for the year under 300, a number now expected to be surpassed within days.

“He called it a moonshot,” the mayor said. “The idea was, not so much the number, but making sure that we rallied all the resources, both within the Police Department, but also with our various partners, to really focus on what each of us could to do more around public safety.”

Lightfoot said it’s harder than usual for cops to stem violence because the pandemic has taken some federal agents out of that effort and because county officials are trying to limit jail inmate numbers to curb the virus’s spread there, which has led to more people getting released after arrest.

“We still have some concern on the part of the county about how many people can safely be in Cook County Jail,” she said. “We still have some concern about bond decisions.”

Lightfoot called the city’s public safety “a big ecosystem” with “lots of different inputs and partners.”

“The challenge that we have faced is, while the Chicago Police Department has been out there, many other parts of the system have not been up to full complement.”

Lightfoot said she would convene a meeting this week with representatives of the Cook County state’s attorney’s office and the criminal courts “to talk about things each of us can do to step up to stem the violence that we saw this weekend.”

https://www.wbez.org/stories/chicago...b-e3f428e7ea7b

41 Shot, 6 Fatally Monday in Chicago – NBC Chicago

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