CNN :
At least 150 people were killed by gun violence in more than 400 shootings across the United States during the July 4 weekend, reads the data compiled by the Gun Violence Archive.
The data, which includes the number of shooting incidents and gun violence victims nationally over a 72-hour period from Friday, is still evolving and will be updated, reports CNN.
In New York, where gun violence has been rising to levels not seen in years, there were 26 victims from 21 shootings from Friday to Sunday, a decrease from the same period last year when 30 people were shot in 25 shootings, the New York Police Department said.On July 4, the city experienced 12 shooting incidents that involved 13 victims, an increase from last year when there were eight shootings and eight victims, according to the NYPD.
So far this year, gun violence incidents in New York have spiked almost 40% over the same period in 2020, with 767 shootings and 885 victims. CNN has requested data on how many of the shootings over the weekend resulted in homicides. Gun violence plagued Chicago too, with 88 people shot there. Of them, 14 died, reports AFP.
One of the 14 people killed was a member of the Illinois Army National Guard.
Two Chicago police officers were injured in an overnight shooting as an individual opened fire while officers were dispersing a crowd of several thousand people and made more than 60 arrests, police said. Both are expected to survive.
Unlike other cities experiencing a spike in violent crime, the homicide rate in Chicago through June is 2% lower than the same period in 2020. The number of victims is still 14% higher.
A reason for the drop was a less violent June where Chicago saw a 20% drop in homicides compared to last year (98 instead of 78), a 13% drop in shootings (416 compared to 363) and an 8% decrease in shooting victims (540 compared to 499).
The holiday weekend violence comes after increased media and police attention to the problem that has plagued Chicago all year, the nation’s third-largest city which is on pace for more murders than the 774 recorded in 2020 — which was Chicago’s second deadliest year in the last two decades and more than New York and Los Angeles combined.
Holiday weekends usually are especially deadly in Chicago, and because of that, members of Chicago’s City Council took the unprecedented step of grilling police superintendent David Brown for six hours on July 2 about police strategies.
Despite the meeting, 10 more people were shot than last weekend, when 78 were shot, 10 fatally, across the city.
Last year 87 people were shot in Chicago, 17 fatally, over a four-day stretch that included July 4. That is a day more than this holiday weekend, so this year’s July 4 gun violence was worse.
And along with five children who were shot this weekend in Chicago, two police officers – a commander and a sergeant – were also shot early Monday morning while trying to disperse a crowd on Chicago’s West Side. They are recovering from non-life-threatening gunshot wounds.
Outside the hospital Monday, Brown provided updates on other Fourth of July shootings, including a 5-year-old girl shot Sunday afternoon and four other children shot over the weekend in separate incidents.
“As we’ve seen too many times, tragically, someone else is being targeted and the unintended target, an innocent child, is struck,” Brown said.
Fed up with gun violence, mothers and grandmothers in Austin, one of Chicago’s most violent neighborhoods, went on a hunger strike and slept in a tent in the parking lot of an abandoned bank over the Independence Day weekend.
The women, who ranged in age from 21 to 71, included Rosetta Dotson, 67, who lost three nephews to gun violence over the years and Jackie Guider, 57, whose son Chavaris was fatally shot in the head by an armed robber on the streets of Chicago in 2016.
Sitting on chairs in a semi-circle in 90-degree heat on Saturday, the women prayed and talked about their neighborhood – Austin – which they love despite its reputation. For them, the only way the violence will stop is for the community to take action.
For mother and grandmother Jacqueline Reed, 71, things have never been so dangerous in Austin. The mother of three adult sons, Reed said she didn’t fear for their safety when they were growing up, but times have changed.
“I was never afraid. They rode big wheels up and down the street and we didn’t have that fear that something bad would happen,” she said.
