Even the north side of Chicago can be dangerous. I was attacked on an elevated train. I had to go to court twice to get the stupid asshole in prison for 6 months. What a stupid fucking asshole.
These days I live in a northwestern Illinois farm town. There is zero violence here. People are civilized and always very friendly.
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Chicago’s top cop calls spike in violence a ‘pandemic’ that is draining resources from fighting coronavirus outbreak
By GREGORY PRATT, PAIGE FRY and JEREMY GORNER
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
APRIL 08, 2020
Mayor Lori Lightfoot and interim police Superintendent Charlie Beck decried Tuesday’s spike in gun violence in Chicago, saying the shootings strain the city’s health services at a time when hospitals need to focus on the coronavirus pandemic.
“Violence of any kind is never acceptable,” Lightfoot said. “But the fact that this is especially urgent now as our ability to treat all Chicagoans is being stretched to the breaking point, we cannot allow this to happen and we will not allow this to happen."
At least 21 people were shot Tuesday, including a 5-year-old girl who was sitting on a porch on the South Side. A man with her was killed. Six other people were shot to death across the city, the deadliest day from gunfire in nearly two years. During a five-hour span on Wednesday, another nine people were shot — one reported as accidental — and two people were killed, including a 15-year-old boy.
The slayings and shootings come as Chicago also struggles to curb the spread of the new coronavirus. Chicago has accounted for 6,099 of the state’s 15,078 known cases and 177 of Illinois’ 462 deaths since the outbreak started.
Beck underscored Lightfoot’s dire message on Wednesday, declaring “there are two pandemics in Chicago, and only one is virus induced.
“Every one of those beds, everyone of those ER beds, taken up by a gunshot victim could be somebody’s grandmother, somebody with preexisting conditions, somebody that is in danger of losing their lives because of the pandemic,” he said.
“Every one of those cops, and there are dozens, who are pulled off the street in order to work one of these crimes cannot enforce social distancing, can’t do security at our public safety venues and our health safety venues,” Beck added. “They can’t watch over your home, and they can’t watch over your children.”
Violence has been generally down in the city in the weeks since Gov. J.B. Pritzker imposed a stay-at-home order last month to try to curb the coronavirus outbreak. Chicago recorded its fewest fatal shootings for March in at least five years, according to data kept by the Tribune.
Tuesday, however, saw the most shootings in the city in at least a month and the most people killed by gunfire since August 2018, when nine were shot to death. The burst of violence coincided with temperatures in the upper 70s, several degrees shy of breaking a 127-year-old record. On Monday, 13 people were shot in Chicago and three of them died, according to Chicago police.
Since the Tribune began tracking homicides in 2013, there have been eight days with seven homicides, seven days with eight homicides and four days with nine homicides.
“Unfortunately, the epidemic of gun violence continues to plague us every day, every hour of the day,” Lightfoot said during a morning news conference Wednesday. “Just taking yesterday as an example, a warm day where people came outside. Individual trigger-pullers slaughtered people in a totally heinous way. This level of violence is never acceptable. Never, ever.”
She said gunmen “shooting into crowds without any regard for the consequences is the most heinous form of cowardice.”
“I’ve directed the Police Department to spare no expense or resource to bring the perpetrators to justice, and we already have some promising leads,” Lightfoot said.
The mayor made an appeal to the public to turn in the gunmen. “People know who the shooters are. You know who you are. These cowards cannot be given any shelter,” Lightfoot said. “In the middle of this worldwide pandemic, our precious health resources need to be treating COVID patients and those needing acute care.
“Every day we are measuring our precious heath care resources — the number of beds that we have in hospitals, ICU capacity,” Lightfoot added. “To be blunt, if our ICUs are filled with gunshot victims, our ability to respond to this COVID-19 crisis will unnecessarily be compromised.”
The shooting that wounded the 5-year-old happened in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood, where two other fatal shootings occurred over seven hours.
Chicago police say the 5-year-old girl was sitting on a porch in the 8600 block of South Damen Avenue with three men in their 20s when a black sedan drove past about 7:35 p.m. Two people in the car opened fire, and someone on the porch may have shot back, Sgt. Rocco Alioto said at the scene.
The girl was shot in the left foot and taken to Little Company of Mary Hospital in Evergreen Park in good condition. One of the men, 27, was shot twice in the chest and taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he was pronounced dead. A 22-year-old man was shot several times in the right leg and was taken to Christ in good condition. A 24-year-old man was shot twice in each arm and was in good condition at Little Company of Mary.
At least 10 evidence markers could be seen in front of the home. There were also markers on the lawn of a neighboring home. “Evidence shows the group may have returned fire,” police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi tweeted late Tuesday.
No one was in custody.
About an hour after the shooting, a 19-year-old man was found dead, a gunshot wound to the head, in the front seat of a car about 2 miles away, police said. Officers found the man about 8:30 p.m. after getting a call of shots fired in the 8000 block of South Carpenter Street, also in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood. No one was in custody.
Hours earlier, about 1:30 p.m., someone shot at a 28-year-old man and a 19-year-old man in the 7700 block of South Throop Street in Auburn Gresham. The older man was hit on the left side of his chest and was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he later died.
The younger man suffered a graze wound to the head and was taken to the U. of C. Medical Center in good condition, police said.
Two people were taken in for questioning, police said.
gpratt@chicagotribune.com
pfry@chicagotribune.com
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