The toll of violence in Chicago continues to spiral higher and higher, and this weekend brought another five killed and 17 wounded to add to the growing number. The weekend’s violence included the wounding of a 15-year-old girl and a knife attack on a British man visiting the city.
The killing started on Friday afternoon at 3PM when a a man was shot and killed in Jefferson Park. A second death occurred just before 9PM that day. Two more were killed on Saturday, with the fifth killed by Sunday.
Also, Friday through Sunday, 17 were wounded in Chicago.
In one case, in Marquette Park, a teenaged girl was shot in the back when an unknown party fired at her and a 20-year-old man who was identified by police as a known gang member.
The teen was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center where she was reported in stable condition.
In another attack on Sunday, on his first day of a visit to Chicago, a visitor from Britain was attacked and robbed at knifepoint by three assailants near Oak Street Beach.
Late on Saturday evening, Neil McCarthy, 27, and his girlfriend from Minnesota Carisa Lerner, 26, were walking around downtown after an evening out when they became lost and ended up near Oak Street Beach. That is where they were accosted and McCarthy stabbed.
“The first day in Chicago, and (I) get stabbed,” McCarthy said. “It’s been an especially relaxing weekend in Chicagotown.”
McCarthy told Chicago media that at first he was compliant with the demands of the thieves, but he got argumentative when an attacker started to accost his girlfriend.
“I was fine with them robbing me, it’s not worth getting stabbed to defend my wallet and my iPhone, so I gave them my phone. But when I turned around and they were getting Carisa… I kind of said, ‘Don’t hurt my girlfriend,'” McCarthy said.
McCarthy grabbed at the knife to fight off one of the robbers, suffering stab wounds and slices to his hands. The commotion drew the attention of a passerby who called police.
But the former member of the Royal Air Force didn’t stop there; he used a cell phone tracker and quickly found one of the attackers who had taken his cell phone. Despite his wounds, McCarthy tackled the thief and put him in a headlock until police arrived to take control of the scene.
“It’s been an exciting holiday,” McCarthy told the media. “It’s been quite an adventure. It was a pretty action-packed night.”
One was arrested for the attack, and police are now looking for the other two.
While Mr. McCarthy was fortunate that he wasn’t killed, many others have not been as lucky in the Windy City. Year to date, 2,497 people have been shot in Chicago, with 375 shot and killed and an additional 43 citizens murdered by other means.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston, or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.
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