The city of Chicago is gearing up for a violent Independence Day holiday, and already on Friday, 12 were shot and five killed before evening even fell.
The violence began Thursday evening when several were shot and killed on the city’s South Side.
Several more were killed on Friday morning, and by Friday afternoon, ten were shot and four killed.
This is in addition to the nine who were killed by gunfire in the Windy City the previous week and the 33 shot and three killed last weekend.
To try and get ahead of the violence, the Chicago police have put officers on a 12-hour shift schedule in order to keep more officers on the street through the holiday weekend.
According to a Chicago PD memo published by the Chicago Tribune, “patrol officers assigned to the first or second shifts will work up to 12 1/2 hours July 3, 4, 5 and 6, up from the usual 8 1/2-hour shifts.”
To date, there have been 1,103 shootings and 194 killed, with a total of 1,297 shot in the city of Chicago.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston, or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.