The weather in Chicago was unseasonably warm for much of the week, and those balmy temps carried over into the weekend. Unfortunately the shootings continued, and the weekend brought yet another large number of wounded and dead Chicagoans. 27 were wounded—including a five-year-old boy—and two killed this weekend.
The child hurt in Chicago’s crime-ridden neighborhoods was shot on Saturday after playing with a gun he found left in his mother’s home by a man who was not the boy’s father.
Authorities arrested the man after the boy accidentally shot himself in the hand by playing with the gun in Chicago’s Washington Park neighborhood.
But the weekend started off on a bad note Friday, during which four more were wounded and the first death of the weekend occurred.
19-year-old Joseph Graves was discovered at 10:30PM, shot in the head in his SUV. Graves was only one of some 13 who were shot between noon on Friday and early Saturday evening. But the toll continued to grow Saturday and Sunday.
Saturday had a particularly bloody outcome, but no deaths, with 14 wounded. But Saturday also saw mayhem of several other types with two bodies found floating in city waters, one in the Chicago River and a second in the Jackson Park Lagoon.
Then there was the vehicular pandemonium in Wicker Park, where police charged a 44-year-old man after he jumped the curb with his car and ran down three pedestrians.
Two victims had concussions and broken legs, and one of them also had a broken jaw. The third was treated and released.
Sunday saw the second death after a shooting that occurred at 10AM in the Englewood district.
Nine more were wounded by early evening on Sunday. One of those wounded was an aspiring rap singer, shot in the city’s Wrigleyville neighborhood.
With two dead and 27 wounded this weekend, the tolls from the same weekend over the last two years racks up with fairly similar numbers. In 2013, four were killed and 17 wounded, while in 2014 three were killed and 32 wounded.
Year-to-date, Chicago has suffered 420 shot and killed and a whopping 2,422 shot and wounded.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston, or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.