The Fourth of July weekend marked the deadliest and most violent in Chicago this year, as 92 people were shot, with 16 being killed, according to a report from the Chicago Sun-Times. Of the 76 people wounded were six children and teenagers and two Chicago police supervisors.
One incident happened at Washington Park on the South Side, where two men, one 21 and the other 26, were fatally wounded, and two children, a 12-year-old girl and a 13-year-old boy, were wounded and taken to a local hospital. Around the same time as that shooting, a 6-year-old girl and a woman were shot in West Pullman, and about four hours later, an 11-year-old boy and a man were shot in Brainerd on the South Side. The following day in West Pullman, a 5-year-old girl was shot in the leg.
Early on Monday (July 5) morning, a Chicago police commander and a sergeant were shot while trying to disperse a crowd on the city’s West Side in the 100-block of North Long Avenue. The commander was struck in the foot and the sergeant was grazed in the leg.
Amid the violence on Sunday, Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition held a cookout and party at the Concordia Place Apartments on the Far South Side. Jackson spoke to the crowd and urged citizens to stop the violence, stating, “We urge people… to put down their guns, stop the violence. Of course, when they see violence – (an) attempt to overthrow our government and they’re treated with kid gloves, it decreases the message: If you pick up a gun and shoot somebody, you’re not walking away. We deserve a better America.”
Source: Chicago Sun-Times
